Customer Reviews

The Big Over Easy

5 star:		(50)
4 star:		(40)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is an early Jasper Fforde book that was rewritten following the success of "The Eyre Affair" and the rest of that series. Readers of "The Well of Lost Plots" will remember that Thursday Next vacationed in an unpublished book called "Caversham Heights", where she met DCI Briggs. This story also takes place in Caversham Heights, this time starring Detective Inspector Jack Spratt, who still eats no fat, and who heads the struggling Nursery Crime Division.

Jack has been very unlucky to be working in the shadow of popular Detective Friedland Chymes, and has just spectacularly lost a major case where the murderous three little pigs got off the hook for the death of the unfortunate big bad wolf. With the Department about to be shut down due to budget cuts and too few published cases, Jack gets a lease on life with the arrival of a contrary new partner, Sergeant Mary Mary and the messy death of Humperdinck Jehoshaphat Aloyius Stuyvesant van Dumpty, a.k.a. Humpty Dumpty.

As the book works its convoluted way to a grand and totally out of left field finale, be prepared to get brain strain trying to remember the dozen plus nursery rhymes thrown casually in the mix, as well as keeping track of the numerous and diverse characters, including an alien who speaks in binary, an aging movie starlet and a disgraced Greek Titan.

Although sometimes a little too clever for its own good, and too far fetched even for a fantasy, it's very entertaining reading, and a good choice for fans of Jasper Fforde.

Amanda Richards, October 26, 2005

When Humperdinck Jehoshaphat van Dumpty, better known as Humpty Dumpty, falls off the wall once too often and is shattered beyond repair, Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his partner Mary Mary of the Nursery Crime Division of the city of Reading are assigned the investigation. The case turns from accidental death to one of murder. Dumpty was a womanizer and con man who had been involved in a lot of shady dealings and who had lots of enemies. Jack is still stinging from not being able to bring the three little pigs to justice for their wanton murder of Mr. Wolff. He wants to shake his reputation for having a poor solve rate for his cases, so cracking the Dumpty case is important to him. How can he solve this high-profile case and prevent the maligned Nursery Crimes Division from being disbanded? How can he keep superstar Detective Friedland Chymes from stealing the investigation from him? Why was Dumpty buying up all the shares of Spongg's Footcare stock before his untimely death? And most important of all, how can the resolution of this case make good copy for a future issue of Amazing Crime Stories magazine?

Author Jasper Fforde has switched gears from his Thursday Next series to begin a new series of hard-boiled police procedurals based on Nursery Crime cases. "The Big Over Easy" has many funny moments as Fforde places familiar nursery rhyme characters in unusual situations. There are puns galore, and humorous character names such as Hercule Porridge, Miss Maple, Lord Peter Flimsey, and Winsum & Loosum. Each chapter is prefaced with an excerpt from an imaginary book that covers a literary topic in this topsy-turvy world. Examples include the Ugly Stepsisters suing fairy tale publications for defamation of character, the testing of a transmutation device that worked temporarily when it turned a pumpkin into a coach, and the banning of the use of twins as plot devices in crime stories.

Fforde parodies detective fiction and nursery rhymes in an innovative and humorous way, but the world in which the story takes place is not as well developed as that in which Thursday Next lived. It is unclear which characters are from books and which are real, if any. Adding to the confusion is the inclusion of a binary-talking extraterrestrial alien. Whether the concept of satirizing a mix of nursery rhymes and detective stories will quickly become tedious or not remains to be seen (the next in the series will feature Jack and Mary in the case of "The Fourth Bear"). But in the meanwhile, I recommend this story for fans of the Thursday Next series, since it employs Fforde's trademark British humor and is an entertaining literary spoof.

Eileen Rieback

I always had a thing against traditional nursery rhymes. I thought they were just a little too violent for their intended audience. Thankfully, Jasper Fforde had the mind to expose the seedy underbelly of Humpty Dumpty's world and the truth is finally out.

Oh, to get a peek inside of the creative and imaginative mind of Mr. Fforde.

"The Big Over Easy" is a skillful work of art and it was a pleasure to read although I did do a little too much eye-rolling.

It's a perfect summer read, full of satire, wit, and plenty to make you chuckle out loud. I loved it!

To be honest, I was a little let down when I heard that the Nursery Crime series (re-tooled Caversham Heights) would be Fforde's follow-up to the Thursday Next books. I loved each and every one of Thursday's adventures, and never tire of re-reading them. I just wasn't sure if this story line would be able to hold my interest. I was able to get an advance copy, however, and I am glad to say that all my fears were ungrounded!

I was a little nervous because I am not really a big detective story fan. Jack Spratt and his reluctant partner, Mary Mary, thumb their noses at traditional detective stories however, which keeps the story fresh. The Nursery Rhymes that form the basis for the crimes in this book are very familiar. Jack comments several times that you know what's going to happen in the end, but you will be very surprised at what happens before you get there. The demise of Humpty Dumpty makes for an extremely complex and engrossing mystery. Funny, unusual crime thriller that will be impossible to describe to friends with a straight face. Here's hoping Fforde's next installment, The Fourth Bear, lives up to the high standards set by this series opener.

Warning: This book is not about Thursday Next. If that's what you are looking for, consider instead The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots and Something Rotten (if you've missed on of the marvelous books in this series).

Jack Spratt Investigates the Big over Easy is a book that many will rate at less than five stars because they are pining for a Thursday Next book. But to be fair, I think we have to look at this book as though we had never read any of the Thursday Next series.

From that perspective, I thought that Jack Spratt Investigates the Big over Easy was a hilarious satire of the detective genre, reporters and police. I cannot think of a satire of those subjects I've enjoyed more.

The basic story is misleadingly simple. Jack Spratt is on his second marriage (the one to his wife who eat no lean didn't last because of her diet) . . . but still stuck in a rut in his career as head of the lowly Nursery Crime Division. Even that occupation is in jeopardy when Spratt fails to help gain a conviction of the three little pigs in the death of one wolf.

When Humpty Dumpty shows up in piece at the base of a wall, Jack's career may be about to go to pieces as well. Because of Humpty's notoriety, compulsive publicity hound (and former colleague) Friedland Chymes decides he wants the case. With never-ending intrigue all around him, Jack takes an inevitable walk through nursery tales that will seem both different and eerily familiar.

Keep your tongue firmly in your check . . . and giggle on! It's an unrestrained romp.

Jasper Fforde has an incredibly inventive mind and a rare insight into literary machinations. Both of those qualities are in full display in his latest work, The Big Over Easy.

This book is billed as a "Nursery Crime" and that's an apt description. The premise of the story revolves around an investigation into the death of Humpy Dumpty, found rather scrambled at the foot of a wall. Jack Sprat and his partner, Mary,Mary are assigned to the case. Shaped as a straightforward police procedural, the book evolves as not quite a fairy tale and not quite as straightforward a detective novel as was probably intended.

That the work is clever is an understatement. Fforde manages to pack an unbelievable number of puns and "inside" literary allusions into this work. Therein lies at once both the strength and the weakness of the book. These amusements are often genuinely funny, but all too often either so contrived or so obscure as to dampen the fun associated with the really good ones. Moreover, the prose can get to be a bit redundant (after a while the Mary,Mary thing starts to wear) and that can make long passages of the book somewhat difficult slogging.

All in all one has to extend kudos to Fforde for the incredible originality and incredibly nimble execution of the concept underlying this book, but one still wishes that he had exercised a bit of restraint in the actual writing and gimmickry he over employed all to often in the writing of this otherwise most amusing effort.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

You know the rest of the story, but let's be honest here -- king's horses and men don't have the technical know-how to reconstruct the sticky fragments of a giant egg. The Reading medical examiner, on the other hand, is up to the task ... and her autopsy shows more than a cracked eggshell: someone shot minor baronet Humpty Stuvesant van Dumpty in the back as he sat pickling his innards on his favorite wall.

Detective Inspector Jack Spratt is on the case, with Sgt. Mary Mary and the entire Nursery Crimes Division at his disposal. Of course, the department is on the brink of ruin after failing to convict three little pigs for the premeditated murder of B. Wolff, and a more published wing of the law enforcement machine is elbowing to get in on the case. And in the Reading Police Department, where "true crime" magazines eat up the very best cases for an insatiable public, it's publish or die.

Suspects are plentiful -- Dumpty, an ex-convict, womanizer and former philanthropic millionaire, has made his share of enemies over the years -- but bodies soon begin piling up as the case grows increasingly tangled.

"The Big Over Easy" is a comedy-mystery from Welsh author Jasper Fforde, best known for his popular Thursday Next series. The good news is, it looks like Jack Spratt and Mary Mary will become a new regular feature as the Nursery Crimes series continues -- and believe me, this new vein of stories is too rich to leave untapped. Fforde wields the obvious potential for humor with a deft hand, at times hammering blatant puns home with careless abandon, at others injecting a more subtle wit into the prose. There are also a number of delightful supporting characters and slightly askew cameo appearances drawn from nursery rhymes and other popular fiction.

Humor aside, the mystery is also a puzzler, with Spratt dismissing the more flamboyant displays of his publicity-happy peers and buckling down into some good, solid investigation as the body count grows and the list of suspects dwindles. Each chapter begins with a faux historical or journalistic excerpt that adds further layers to the complexity of Fforde's world.

In this book Fforde follows the private eye novel formula of the late 40s and finally, in my opinion, learns how to write a novel. Unlike the Thursday Next books which are jam-packed with incidents and non-plot related asides, THE BIG OVER EASY tells one story in which ALL the seeming asides connect in a rather surprising finale. It took me a while to get used to all the nursery rhyme (but mostly fairy tale!) allusions and I rolled my eyes at the majority of them. My only real criticism is that I was not very interested... OK, I was bored by Jack Spratt's family life which seemed lifted from some bad sit-com. I tended to skip right over those sections. (What kind of 20 year old college student asks her Dad to help her with "homework?" And physics "homework" at that. Ai yi yi.) I am first and foremost a detective novel addict. There are few contemporary mystery writers who write authentic detective novels in which clues and evidence can be used by both reader and fictional detective to solve the crime. But Fforde has a respect and obvious love for those old-fashioned stories. And his love of genre-bending (sci fi and fantasy elements blending with detective story plot) results in a eyebrow lifting denouement that made me laugh out loud -- something that I have not done with the later Thursday Next books. I was thoroughly engaged and finished the book in a couple of days. A nice surprise and I look forward to Jack Spratt and the Three Bears... and perhaps a gun-toting Goldilocks?

I would like to begin this review by saying that I think Jasper Fforde is one of the most imaginative and creative writers that I have ever read and definitely one of the best writers out there today. I love the way his stories play with other stories and story telling in general and I think the Thursday Next series is pure joy.

That said, I had a very hard time getting through the Big Over Easy. The plot moved very slow and it was not until halfway through that I even began to become engaged in the characters and what they were involved in. The story fails as a murder mystery (since the eventual answer is essentially that everyone did it) and it failed as a comedy for me because the entire first half of the book only made me feel nostalgic for The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin which I felt did a far better (and funnier) job of bringing the nursery rhyme characters into the real and adult world. Fforde's nursery jokes feel recycled and most fall flat.

The other big problem with this book, for me, was the setting. As a reader of the Thursday Next series, I was very wrong footed as I tried to figure out when and where this story took place. References to things in Thursday's world (including Lola Vavoom and a reference to The Eyre Affair) only served to distract me as I found myself trying to figure out how this story fit into that world. The fact that this story is essentially a spin-off (as Jack and Mary are the characters from the unfinished story Thursday hides out in in Well of Lost Plots) only made me more confused when characters didn't behave as I expected them to from our prior meeting.

Even beyond the distractions above, the story itself was little more than an over the top (not in a good way) parody of detective novels in general and I found myself having to force myself to finish it. I don't how to express it in Amazon stars but I rate this book a solid "eh." I will naturally read the next book because I am a Fforde junky, but I hope its back to his original masterful style rather than this recycled feel.

I really enjoyed this book. I am interested in where this series goes for Jack Spratt and Mary Mary, and I loved the nursery rhyme puns and "realistic" investigations. The book reminded me of Sondheim's "Into the Woods" in that it put the fairytales into a real context and examined them with depth, humor, sometime gravitas, and wit. It's fun to think of Humpty Dumpty as an individual with a chaotic romantic life, a shady investment history and a man whose tie is indestinguishable from his cummerbund!

My criticism of the book, though small, was that there seemed to be a lot of twists and turns at the end, perhaps one or two too many. But overall I thought it was clever and fun, and I would read more by Fforde. I guess I would say that this is better than the most disappointing Thursday Next but not quite as good as the best Next. At the same time, it's somewhat irresistable to examine these archetypal stories in this irreverant context. I really enjoy it, and I recommend this book!