The Big Over Easy
A Nursery Crime
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4.4 • 82 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Welcome to the seedy underbelly of nursery crime. From the New York Times bestselling author of the Thursday Next series comes a rollicking novel—“as if the Marx brothers were let loose in the children’s section of a strange bookstore” (USA Today).
“A wonderfully readable riot . . . cleverly plotted, magically overstuffed yet amazingly digestible . . . [for] anyone who wants the thrill of a good crime novel larded with highly literate humor.”—The Wall Street Journal
Meet Inspector Jack Spratt, family man and head of Reading’s Nursery Crime division. He’s investigating the murder of ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Dumpty, ex-convict and lover of women, found shattered to death beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. Yes, the big egg is down, and 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 past in hopes of finding the key to his death. Before long, Jack and Mary find themselves immersed in a bizarre case that reaches into the highest echelons of Reading society and business.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fforde's whimsical fifth novel, his first not to feature literary detective Thursday Next, is consistently witty, but its conceit putting a criminal spin on nursery rhymes wears a bit thin. Det. Jack Spratt, the dedicated but underappreciated investigator in the Reading, England, Nursery Crimes Division, is depressed because the court finds the three little pigs "not guilty of all charges relating to the first-degree murder of Mr. Wolff." Working with an ambitious young detective, Mary Mary ("Quite Contrary"), Spratt later takes on the case of "fall guy" Humpty Dumpty. Fforde crafts a police procedural out of this bizarre alternative universe that prizes, as The Eyre Affair does, literacy (detectives, for example, garner recognition less for solving crimes than by writing articles about cases for the likes of Amazing Crime Stories or Sleuth Illustrated). While it can be charming to encounter Mrs. Hubbard or Tom Thomm or to hear Spratt bemoan "illegal straw-into-gold dens" in this unusual context, the novel's broad satire overshadows elements like plot, conflict and characterization. The result is unusually clever but not compelling in the least.
Customer Reviews
Great Read
This book is absurdly delightful. Admittedly, I am not too up on my nursery rhymes, but the twists and turns in the investigation of Mr. Humpty's demise had me guessing and unsure until the very last page.
Don’t Waste Your Time
Terrible book of pages filled with nonsense. The plot was disjointed and the characters absurd. Worst book I have ever read.
Really fun read ^_^
I like mystery/crime and I really love reimagining of fairytale/folktale stories and this one is creative and very fun to read~ I read it a long time ago and was excited to find it here, I know the ending already but it’s great to revisit Reading and all the characters~