The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde

Jasper Fforde loves books.  That fact has been widely noted over the years.  While Fforde is most famously known for his Thursday Next series, which features a determined, resolute literary detective who also moonlights inside books to solve crimes, plot holes and apprehend page running characters, my first foray into Fforde’s work started with The Big Over Easy. Despite slogging through the classics as an English major back during school, I didn’t seem to know as many as what would be required for Thursday Next.  The Big Over Easy was definitely more of a draw.  I mean, how many people out there have read Jane Austin?  A few of you, good.  Now how many of you have heard about Humpty Dumpty and his poor relationship with walls?  Yep, everyone.

But this isn’t a children’s book.  The Big Over Easy takes us to the city of Reading, where nursery rhyme characters are real, animals talk and take on human characteristics, where the most horrible criminal ever seen is a six foot tall gingerbread man and where in the world of law enforcement, it always pays to keep in mind the eventual TV or movie adaptation of your adventures.