The Fourth Bear: A Nursery Crime

The inimitable Jasper Fforde gives readers another delightful mash-up of detective fiction and nursery rhyme, returning to those mean streets where no character is innocent.

The Gingerbreadman—sadist, psychopath, cookie—is on the loose in Reading, but that’s not who Detective Jack Spratt and Sergeant Mary Mary are after. Instead, they’ve been demoted to searching for missing journalist “Goldy” Hatchett. The last witnesses to see her alive were the reclusive Three Bears, and right away Spratt senses something furry—uh, funny—about their story, starting with the porridge.

The Fourth Bear is a delirious new romp from our most irrepressible fabulist.

My Review:
Reading is a land where thumbs are never sucked (8) less Scissors-man, a Person of Dubious Reality (PDR) finds out. This second in the nursery crime series had me chuckling by page 13 and laughing out loud by page 14.

The characters are unique to any other book I've ever read. There's Jack Spratt (who eats no fat) and Mary Mary (who really isn't that contrary), and they lead the Nursery Crimes Division (NCD) along with Constable Ashley, a blue alien visitor, who speaks binary as well as twenty-three other languages. He can make suggestions to anyone whose hand he shakes!

Investigative reporter, Goldilocks is missing, and the NCD is on the case. The villain, Gingerbreadman, is a seven-foot tall homicidal maniac. You might remember his speed from your younger days ... "run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me . . ."

I'd sure like to have a car like Jack's Allegro. Inside the truck is an oil painting that changes with every dent and ding, while the car continually restores itself!

Note: contains some profanity.