Cultural Dessert

'The Big Over Easy' by Jasper Fforde

10 April 2007

Read this book! - I loved it. Humpty Dumpty is dead but did he fall off the wall or was he pushed? This is a case for Detective Inspector Jack Spratt of the Nursery Crime Division - and the start of an elaborate double parody incorporating more nursery rhymes than you realised you remembered and a wonderful send-up of detective fiction. The tone is set early on when the smarmy rival DI Friedland Chymes is giving a press conference to explain how he solved his latest case - correctly identifying the killer as Miss Celia Mangersen, the victim's neice. A journalist asks him what the significance was of the traces of custard found on the colonel's sock suspender and Chymes explains:

"Mortally wounded and with only seconds to live, he had somehow to leave a clue to his assailant's identity. A note? Of course not - the killer would find and destroy it. Guessing correctly that a murder of this magnitude would be placed in my hands, he decided to leave behind a clue that only I could solve. Knowing the colonel's penchant for anagrams, it was but a swift move to deduce his reasoning. The sock suspender was made in France. 'Custard' in French is 'creme anglaise' - and an anagram of this is 'Celia Mangerse-", which not only correctly identified the killer, but also told me the colonel died before he was able to finish the anagram."

Jack Spratt and his new Detective Sergeant, Mary Mary ("Her name was Mary. Mary Mary") pursue an elaborate convoluted plot involving Wee Willie Winkie, Rapunzel, aliens, immortals from Ancient Greece and some magic beans. 'The Big Over Easy' is very silly but incredibly clever and tremendously enjoyable. There is perhaps too much crammed into it - including an enormous number of characters it is quite difficult to keep track of - but if you just give up trying to make sense of it all and just go along for the ride it's a wonderful journey. It's also very well written and cleverly plotted - however silly the story is it has to work as a proper whodunnit, which it does. There are so many fantastic ideas ('Oysters one step closer to vote') but I won't spoil it for you by citing any more here. I couldn't put the book down and read most of it with a big smile on my face. Now I can't wait for the publication of the sequel 'The Fourth Bear' in June 2007.

Labels: Books

posted by Robin Simpson @ 4:16 pm