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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 (view spoiler)[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) (hide spoiler)]. 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.