The Big Over Easy, Jasper Fforde
The Book
Jack Spratt can solve no case...or so the bastardization of the nursery rhyme goes. Well, it would, it's a Nursery Crime and Jack Spratt is actually Detective Inspector Jack Spratt, head of the Nursery Crimes divisions. What are Nursery Crimes, well that would be any crime committed by or pertaining to Nursery Rhyme characters, fictitious characters, or other worldly beings. This is a problem that is specific to Reading, Berkshire, England. (For those of you who like me and have grown up in America, this town is pronounce like reeding not like redding. Pennsylvania would like for you to know redding it the preferred pronunciation there.)
Jack gets as his junior partner Detective Constable, Mary Mary. Yes, Mary Mary of quite contrary fame, well, the latest in a long line of Mary Marys at the very least.
The NCD has two problems, one is the rivalry between Jack and his former partner Friedland Chymes. And NCD's abysmal conviction rate. Chymes is a well liked, popular detective who is regularly published in Amazing Crime Stories. Jack Spratt is lucky if the press sleeps through his press conferences. With little public fascination with his work, the NCD is on the budgetary chopping block. And it looks to get worse when Humpty Dumpty is found dead at the bottom of his wall at his apartment.
Jack and Mary have to navigate this crime through the Nursery underworld, understaffed, disrespected all while Jack is up for admission into the prestigious XXX. Without a compelling backstory, and Chymes on the selection board, Jack is unlikely to get in. Can Jack figure out who killed Humpty? And can he finally expose Chymes and Amazing Crime Stories for the frauds they are?
My Thoughts
This was a really fun read. Breezy and easy to get through, it was fun to follow the twists and turns of the investigation. Fforde really has a way of making sure that no matter what happens, his protagonist's day/case gets worse. Moreover, like really great fiction, especially in the satire area, it levels an accurate critique of the ills of early 21st crime solving. Long before the rise of true crime podcasting, true crime was exploding as a device for police departments to justify their existence. In a book about as silly as you can get, with plot devices that are simply ridiculous, the message of using true crime as entertainment really hits home.
If you're into Christopher Moore, then you're missing out by not reading Jasper Fforde.
How Much My Library Card Saved Me
This book was purchased by friend Gwen Tolios on my behalf last January. I gave her $20 to buy as many random mystery books as she could lay her hands on at her local bookstore's going-out-of-business sale. On the one hand, I'm super sad that her favorite bookstore couldn't make it. Small businesses face cut throat capitalism. I spent $20 for all 7 books she got. One of them had a $3 price tag and since 7x3=21 and that's close to the $20 I actually spent, that's the number I will use. And let us say nothing that I'm starting off a book from my own collection rather than a library book. It'll be our little secret. ;)
Library Books
This Book $0.00
Library Items Reviewed This Year $0.00
Private Books
This Book $3.00
Total of Private Books $3.00
Total of All Items Reviewed This Year $3.00
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