And I mean, serious crime fiction like books by Agatha Christie, Reginald Hill, John Harvey, Colin Dexter, Ellis Peters…etc.Īnd you know what? He loved it.

And for me, the evidence of this is in the fact that I buddy read this with a 50+ year old family friend who only ever reads crime fiction. I wouldn’t imagine that my ideal reading experience wuld be a crime novel based around characters in nursery rhymes…I’d think, nah the author is cluthicing at straws there…it’s a bit too far fetched and I couldn’t invest in something that that…īut Fforde is the only author who can pull of a narrative that mixes crime with childhood favourites. Fforde is clever and he’s good at finding the balance between interesting, gripping, fun and silly. It’s a safe bet to assume that you encounteres nursery rhymes at some point in your childhood, and that there’s a part of you just aching to get in touch with that era again, right? It’s just more crime rather than literature. It’s different, but fundamentally written in the same style, with the same kind of humor. Yes – If you’ve read Thursday Next, then proceed happily into the Nursery Crime series. But read the entire series, because it will come in handy. If you like his writing in those, then you’ll like this one too. No – Start with Fforde’s Thursday Next series. My advice for anyone wondering whether or not to read this book is to answer the following question: And on top of everything else, the JellyMan is coming to town… As Jack and Mary stumble around the streets of Reading in Jack’s Lime Green Austin Allegro, the clues pile up, but Jack has his own problems to deal with.

Following the pathologist’s careful reconstruction of Humpty’s shell, Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his Sergeant Mary Mary are soon grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, the illegal Bearnaise sauce market, corporate politics and the cut and thrust world of international Chiropody. Humpty Dumpty, well-known nursery favourite, large egg, ex-convict and former millionaire philanthropist is found shattered beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. It’s Easter in Reading – a bad time for eggs – and no one can remember the last sunny day. ‘It looks like he died from injuries sustained during a fall…’ Bestselling author Jasper Fforde begins an effervescent new series. “It was the week following Easter in Reading and no one could remember the last sunny day.”

The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde