Review
'What makes Fforde a star is not his ebullient cleverness, but the elusive sympathy factor. However ridiculous his themes seem, his characters have a compelling immediacy.'
(Independent )'It would be hard not to be won over by Fforde's undeniable energy and the sheer, unrelenting number of gags'
(Daily Mail )'Fforde is inventive and hugely funny.'
(The Times )'THE FOURTH BEAR is a great choice as it has everything - humour, intrigue and cucumbers as a matter of national security . . . will have you wondering how you haven't discovered Fforde before.'
(Anys Scoular, Observer )'THE FOURTH BEAR sees one of our funniest and most inventive authors at the height of his powers. The jokes come so fast that it is clear the author simply let his imagination off the leash and had a great time while writing it. You will have a great time reading it too.'
(Daily Express )'With its witty literary allusions, social satire and blurred boundaries between fiction and reality, it's all completely mad, very funny . . . It also adds to Fforde's growing reputation as one of Britain's most inventive novelists and the thriller element keeps you guessing too.'
(Word )Praise for Jasper Fforde's new crime series (: )
'I love it. THE BIG OVER EASY is great not just because it's very funny...but also because it works properly as a whodunit...Comic genius.' (Observer )
'A riot of puns, in-jokes and literary allusions that Fforde carries off with aplomb' (Daily Mail )
'This is the first of best-selling Fforde's hilarious, absurd and utterly compelling new series of nursery crimes for adults.'
(Daily Mirror )'Fforde's dexterously tailored nonsense has an underlying thread of shrewd satire, and the author's own wry, dry narration helps to compensate for the omission in this abridgement of so many of his gloriously surreal jokes.'
(The Times )'This novel is a wonderful combination of silliness and cleverness, and a delightful holiday from reality. It's got such a good comic premise that it would work even if played straight, but virtually every page is adorned with puns, gags, tongue-twisters or comic setpieces, keeping the reader in a perpetual state of amusement.'
(Independent on Sunday )Product Description
The Gingerbreadman: Psychopath, sadist, genius, convicted murderer and biscuit is loose in the streets of Reading. It isn't Jack Spratt's case. He and Mary Mary have been reassigned due to falling levels of nursery crime, and The NCD is once more in jeopardy. That is, until a chance encounter during the Armitage Shanks literary awards at the oddly familiar Deja-Vu Club lead Jack and Mary on the hunt for missing journalist Henrietta 'Goldilocks' Hatchett, star reporter for The Daily Toad. She had been about to break a story involving unexplained explosions in Herefordshire, Pasadena and the Nullabor Plain; The last witnesses to see her alive were The Three Bears, comfortably living out a life of rural solitude in Andersen's wood.
But all is not what it seems. How could the bear's porridge be at such disparate temperatures when they were poured at the same time? Was Goldy's death in the nearby 1st World War themepark of Sommeworld a freak accident? And is it merely chance that the Gingerbreadman pops up at awkward moments?
But there's more. What does a missing scientist with a terrifying discovery in subatomic physics, a secret weapon of devastating power, a reclusive industrialist known only as the Quangle Wangle and Colonel Danvers of the National Security all have in common?
