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Who killed Humpty Dumpty? In this amazingly silly police-procedural, we follow Detective-Inspector Jack Spratt (aka Jack Beanstalk, Giant Killer) and Detective Sergeant Mary Mary of the Reading Police, Nursery Crimes Division through the twists and turns of this fractured fairy-tale. Just about every half-remembered nursery-rhyme character makes an appearance: The Three Little Pigs, Rumpelstilkin, clues such as an auburn, 28-foot long human hair -- along with more about podiatry than you really want to know. What are verrucas, anyway?

Anyway, "The Big Over Easy" has all the exuberant, clever silliness that I love in Jasper Fforde -- he's in top form here. The Thursday Next literary-detective schtick was wearing a bit thin, so I was happy to see him start something fresh. If you've somehow missed Fforde's literary-fantasy extravaganzas (The Eyre Affair, et seq.), Over Easy wouldn't be a bad place to start -- though you'll miss all the insider links to the Thursdayverse. Fforde fans will be happy to hear that this one is as silly and entertaining as the best of those.

The cover art (by Tom Gauld) and interior illos are, well, just as silly and spot-on as the book. You never know how somebody else will react to humor, but you really owe it to yourself to try at least one Fforde. There's a Fforde in your future!

In his Big Over Easy "Making Of" Wordumentary [sadly, no longer online], Fforde reveals that Over Easy started out as his first novel, "roundly rejected by all and sundry" in 1994. And extensively rewritten in 2004: "Like most things I attempt to accomplish, I usually start with a 'how hard can it be?' attitude which is quickly replaced by a 'Holy shit, this stuff is tricky!'..." Indeed.
[review written 2005]