Series
Nursery Crimes
Jasper Fforde · 2 novels · 2005–2006
In an alternate Reading, England, where nursery-rhyme and fairy-tale characters live as ordinary if eccentric citizens, Detective Inspector Jack Spratt of the Nursery Crime Division investigates cases that keep colliding with their source material. The Big Over Easy turns Humpty Dumpty's fall into a murder investigation; The Fourth Bear follows with the Gingerbread Man as a serial killer. Jasper Fforde plays the premise for satire and wordplay as much as plot, in the same absurdist vein as his Thursday Next novels.
Summary by Loreful, from public sources
Reading order
The order the books came out.
Map
Nursery Crimes at the centre, its books fanned around what holds them. Pick anything for its details, and zoom out for similar series in orbit — the reading order above lists the same books as text.
Stats
By decade
- 2000s2
Shape
2 novels
1 author
reads like:mystery & detectivemurder investigationalternate earthcontemporaryfunnyadult
Mood
Bright and intense: 100% of this series' placed works, the catalog's 44%.
this series · the catalog · one dot = one book2 of 2 works carry a tone
Edges of the map
- The Fourth Beardarkest · calmest
- The Big Over Easybrightest · most intense