The big over easy : a nursery crime / Jasper Fforde.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fforde, Jasper.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nursery rhymes--Adaptations.

Nursery rhymes.

Genre:

Mystery fiction.

Fantasy fiction.

Adaptations.

Fiction.

Physical Description:

xii, 383 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Viking, 2005.

Summary:

Jasper Fforde's bestselling Thursday Next series delights readers of every genre with its literary derring-do and brilliant flights of fancy. In The Big Over Easy, the first book in a new series, Fforde takes a break from classic literature and tumbles into the seedy underbelly of nursery crime.

Meet Detective Inspector Jack Spratt, family man and head of the Nursery Crime Division, long suffering under the shadow of the flashy Detective Friedland Chymes with his astonishing number of published cases in Amazing Crime Stories. SPRATT is fresh from a spectacular failure to see convicted three wily pigs for the murder of a certain wolf. The media and tide of public opinion are set squarely against him. Now, new trouble is brewing.

It's Easter in Reading-a bad time for eggs-and no one can remember the last sunny day. Ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Dumpty, minor baronet, lover of women, ex-convict, and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered to death beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. Yes, the big egg is down. All those brittle pieces sitting in the morgue point to foul play. SPRATT and his new partner, SERGEANT MARY MARY, search through Humpty's sordid and secretive past in hopes of finding the key to his death. Immersed in a case that reaches into the highest echelons of Reading society and business, SPRATT is walking the tightrope of his career. Before long JACK and MARY find themselves grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, bullion smuggling, problems with beanstalks, Titans seeking asylum, and the cut-and-thrust world of international chiropody. And on top of all that, the Jellyman is coming to town....

The familiar and utterly transformed characters and world of nursery crime are pure ingenious fun. Just when you thought he'd stretched his astonishing imagination to the limit, Jasper Fforde does it again with this dazzling new series.

Contents:

1 Mary Mary 1

2 Jack Spratt 14

3 The Fall Guy 27

4 Mrs. Hubbard, Dogs and Bones 47

5 Prometheus 52

6 Mrs. Laura Dumpty 64

7 The Nursery Crime Division 72

8 The Armory 79

9 Back at the Office 85

10 Charles Pewter 92

11 The Sacred Gonga 99

12 St. Cerebellum's 107

13 First on the Right 114

14 Meeting the Detective 115

15 Granny Spratt's Displeasure 122

16 Mrs. Singh Turns the Story 128

17 The Inquiry Begins 137

18 Lord Randolph Spongg IV 146

19 Solomon Grundy 155

20 Press Conference 163

21 RIP, Mrs. Dumpty, and "the Case...Is Closed!" 175

22 Titans and Beanstalks 183

23 Mary's Doubts 190

24 Briggs v. Spratt 198

25 Good Night, Wee Willie Winkie 205

26 Meet the Grundys 212

27 Perplexity, Complexity 218

28 Castle Spongg 225

29 Lola Vavoom 234

30 Another Press Conference 246

31 Home, Sweet Home 254

32 Giorgio Porgia 265

33 What Bessie Brooks Had to Say for Herself 275

34 Investigated 282

36 Refilling the Jar 294

37 The Man from the Guild 300

38 Lola Vavoom Returns 307

39 The Red Ford Zephyr 312

40 The Goring Foot Museum 319

41 Dr. Horatio Carbuncle 325

42 Return to Castle Spongg 335

43 Loose Ends 354

44 The End of the Story 366.

ISBN:

0670034231

OCLC:

58807564