The Big Over Easy

After reaching the end of the first part of the Thursday Next series (Jasper Fforde started another set of 4 a bit later... currently it is 1 book in, with 1 more expected out in August 2010), I decided to read some more of Fforde by picking up the first book in the Nursery Crime series... The Big Over Easy. Let me just say... it's as amazing as his previous ventures.

Unlike the Thursday Next series, this book gets its mystery right away (in The Eyre Affair, for example, the main plotline didn't really seem to show up until you were half way through the book)... Humpty Dumpty dies in chapter 3. That said, it's not that easy... they don't actually know it's murder until chapter 16. Fforde does a nice job keeping you interested until that point... at which point it takes off as they set out to solve a murder.

The story follows long time Nursery Crime Detective Jack Spratt, coming off of a failed case where he tried to get 3 pigs convicted for the death of a wolf, and his new partner, Mary Mary... who's goal is to get a promotion away from NCD to work with Friedland Chymes, one of the best detectives in the world and constantly being published in Amazing Crime Stories, which is an achievement that is highly regarded by all. They ended up getting stuck together (Spratt & Chymes used to be partners, but stuff went bad and now Spratt hates Chymes) and quickly get the case of Humpty Dumpty. It all looks straight forward, complete with a note admitting guilt... until an alibi pops up. And then the bodies start piling up, and it becomes obvious that the murderer is still out there, and will stop at nothing to get away.

It's a great book. Totally worth the read. So go read it.