This is terrible. I abandoned it. It was so boring that I forgot what was going on. DO NOT READ IT!!!

4.5 stars

I bought this book for a dollar at a thrift store not thinking much of it, just expecting it to be a light little read, but I was honestly blown away by how good this book was. I love Jasper Fforde’s whimsical style and all of the silly little nursery rhyme references there were. This reminded me a lot of a Terry Pratchett book, except this one actually had a good and compelling plot. I love a good murder mystery, and this one had me hooked until the very end, with a crazy twist that had me go “what the fuck??” out loud as I read it.

Also unrelated but whoever owned this before me wrote the page number on every page in pencil, even though it was already printed on the page bc it’s a book.

But more like 3,5. The audiobook was a delight! At least some knowledge of nursery rhymes required for greater enjoyment.

The name of one of the characters is spelt Gretel Kandlestyck-Maeker (she’s German), and there’s also, of course, one Butcher and one Baker, and this makes me very happy.

I've read or skimmed two pages of this at most. I had to start in the middle and almost set the book alight when I read a sentence. Fortunately it's not my copy so I didn't. One of its great problems, not really an intrinsic thing, most definitely exogenous in all respects more or less, is the fact that it is set in a town I was cursed to visit again and again over the past 20 years. And before that even, many a time. A place I had to fly 24 hours to get to, and then stay in for weeks, alone, for reasons that as the days pass I find harder and harder to explain to myself. And yet, there I was. In Reading and, mostly, in Caversham Park. Words can't do justice to what I'd like to do to that place. Treating it as an absurdist stage is all very well but what if you had to go there for reasons that you will never be able to justify to yourself or your loved ones, if that is, any of them still remain to be told.

I enjoyed the book, although not as much as the Thrusday Next series. Still, it's very entertaining, with a lot of wordplays, plot twists and Fforde's witty imagination hard at work ! He plays with the conventions of detective fiction and the outcome of the investigation is as weird as it gets! There are wacky characters, hilarious situations and references to Thursday Next's world (a nice touch!).

This is one of the weirdest books that I have ever read, but I really liked it. You definitely have to have an appreciation for satire and knowledge of obscure nursery rhymes also helps (Solomon Grundy was a nursery rhyme before he was a comic book villain). This book combines hardboiled mystery novels with nursery rhymes, all while poking fun at the mystery genre, characters and scenarios that inspired it. I really enjoyed the literary references and the mystery itself is pretty good with plenty of twists. It does seem pretty ridiculous at times but once you embrace that it's a really good story.

Re-read 8/25/22: I needed an audiobook and was in the mood for this one. The narration by Simon Prebble is really good, and the zaniness that is Fforde's trademark suited my mood. It did highlight the big gap in Fforde's publication history, but as the sequel to Shades of Grey has an actual listing on Amazon UK, I feel less sad about this than I otherwise would. My review below stands.

Read 10/2/17: I picked this up for some light comfort reading over the weekend, and it did not disappoint. This is by way of being a very loose spin-off from the Thursday Next books (Thursday encounters Mary Mary's home in a book character exchange program) and really is a standalone series. Detective Jack Spratt heads up the Nursery Crime division at the Reading police department, and when Humpty Dumpty is found dead at the base of a wall, shattered into a thousand pieces, the case is clearly his and just as clearly suicide. But Jack, along with his new partner Mary Mary, soon finds it was murder, and ends up fighting not only the suspects, but his own department, to solve the case.

I'm generally a fan of Jasper Fforde's books no matter what he writes, and this was no exception. I like the conceit of nursery rhyme characters coexisting with humans, and even more enjoy that Jack doesn't know he's a nursery rhyme character, even though he and his first wife embodied the rhyme AND he's also a giant-killer (though only one was a giant; the rest were just tall). In addition to the nursery rhyme theme, detection in this world is a matter of pleasing the public, because detectives are expected not only to solve cases in a way suited to publication or filming, but also to have colorful personal lives. Jack, happily married father of five with no real vices, can never get into the Guild because Nursery Crime just doesn't sell papers. It's a fun idea that Fforde plays to the limit.

Much of Fforde's typical zany humor is on display here--for example, there's the Sacred Gonga, which is constantly alluded to but never described, and the Jellyman, whose actual identity and purpose are also never mentioned despite his being some kind of important political or religious figure. The reader is left to just go with the flow, and if you're in the right mood for it, it can be very entertaining. I still prefer Shades of Grey, but this passed the time enjoyably.

While I really enjoyed this as another of Fforde's puntastic romps, I didn't really feel like it stacked up to the Thursday Next or chromatics series.

I enjoyed it well enough, but the perspective shifts were sometimes jarring, and, at the end of the day, it read more like any other police procedural novel, with nursery rhyme puns. While those puns certainly added to my enjoyment, it didn't make up for all the other ordinary elements within the book.

Also, the book felt a lot like it was cramming a lot of elements in. The Spratt/Chymes rivalry was an important element, but there were a lot that just felt like they were there to take up pages. I guess Fforde wanted to illustrate a more realistic portrayal of solving a crime, but it was annoying and a little frustrating to follow him on so many dead ends and false leads. By the time he figured out the real answer, it seemed contrived and needlessly complex.

The book wasn't a total waste of time, but I wish I'd picked up something else.

This is the first Fforde novel that I've really enjoyed. I think the blend of great old mystery with laugh out loud funny satire works perfectly here. Great over the top twists as well with the murder of Humpty Dumpty

A little like Terry Pratchett for detective novel enthusiasts. I'm so happy I've found this author! In this first book of the "Nursery Crime" series, Detective Jack Spratt is assigned to look into the untimely death of Humpty Dumpty. After coming off an unsuccessful prosecution of the three little pigs for the first-degree murder of Mr. Wolff (by vicious, premeditated boiling), Spratt is depressed and harried. His job heading up the underfunded and woefully understaffed Nursery Crimes Division in Reading, England is about to get a lot more complicated. He's just been assigned a new partner, Mary Mary--contrary, ambitious, and just quite possibly able to be bought.

What follows is so tongue-in-cheek, so outrageously pun strewn, you can't possibly think it could stoop lower, but it goes there. You might want to follow along with a copy of Mother Goose, and possibly Brothers Grimm and throw in a dictionary of Greek mythology as well. All done in a completely straight-faced police procedural format. *claps appreciatively* Well done! Exceedingly clever and precious, all round.

Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention the clips from local news stories included as an introduction to each chapter, for instance:

"LOCKED ROOM" MYSTERY HONORED"

The entire crime-writing fraternity yesterday bade a tearful farewell to the last "locked room" mystery at a large banquet held in its honor. The much-loved conceptual chestnut of mystery fiction for over a century had been unwell for many years and was finally discovered dead at 3:15 a.m. last Tuesday. In a glowing tribute, the editor of Amazing Crime declared, "From humble beginnings to towering preeminence in the world of mystery, the 'locked room' plot contrivance will always remain in our hearts." DCI Chymes then gave a glowing eulogy before being interrupted by the shocking news that the 'locked room' concept had been murdered--and in a locked room. The banquet was canceled, and the police are investigating."

good fun! 3.5 stars

3.5 stars!
Very Funny!