Jasper Fforde The Big Over Easy

The Big Over Easy

Jasper Fforde

Viking, Jul 2005, $24.95

ISBN: 0670034231

In Reading, England Nursery Crimes Davison Detective Jack Spratt is upset that his latest open and shut homicide case fell apart as the court declared those three murdering pigs not guilty of first-degree murder of Mr. Wolff. However Jack has no time to wallow over his next meal as he is assigned the case of Humpty Dumpty who fell from a wall.

Assigned to work with Jack is quite contrary rookie know-it-all Mary Mary. Jack and Mary, Mary dig deep into the world of yoke learning that Humpty's life was in the dumps. His wife divorced him for womanizing with more women than the king has horses and men. His former lovers hated him enough to want to see him fried. So many suspects wanted HD scrambled and had the opportunity as the victim liked to sit on a wall and think, but the nimble Jack and his sidekick Mary two times struggle to figure who would commit the act.

This is a weird often satirical and amusing police procedural in which nursery rhymes serve as an alternate world. The storyline is clever and literary to the point that writing about solving crime receives more accolades than solving the crime. The little encounters with nursery rhyme characters are fun sort of mindful of Shrek. However, the irony of the storyline is that the sidebar nursery rhyme anecdotes though fun at times overwhelm the plot; if only Jack was as nimble as Thursday.

Harriet Klausner