Astonishingly, he stays funny for 400 pages (and this is only the first in the Nursery Crime Division trilogy).

'Fforde offers a cascade of puns, plays on words, surrealism, satire and verbal virtuosity based on children’s rhymes and stories.

The Big Over Easy is great not just because it's very funny (albeit with some excruciating puns) but also because it works properly as a whodunit.' - Peter Guttridge, The Observer (.) (T)he funniest parts of The Big Over Easy are its sendups of mystery fiction protocol.' - Janet Maslin, The New York Times

'(T)he treat in reading him lies in realizing that there's nothing he won't try.

But like the best novels of Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett, Fforde goes beyond his genre' - Paula L.

' The Big Over Easy is so full of nursery rhyme references, puns and literary asides (not to mention the occasional ad and illustration) that it's hard not to laugh out loud while reading this fantastical sendup of a police procedural.

(.) A real summertime treat.' - Christina Hardyment, The Independent They also have more twists and turns than Christie, and are embellished with the rich detail of a Dickens or Pratchett. They have empathetic heroes and heroines who nearly make terrible mistakes and suitably dastardly villains who do. They are written with buoyant zest and are tautly plotted.

'Fforde's books are more than an ingenious idea.

Apparently written in 1993/4, The Big Over Easy was only published in 2005.

General information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author Paul's currently reading The Fourth Bear, the second in the series which is due out in August and says there are some good, easy laughs to be had, but sadly the jokes are wearing pretty thin.Trying to meet all your book preview and review needs. However, at the end of the day it is sadly a shadow of the Thursday Next series.

The Big Over Easy went down pretty well with my husband, Paul, who could be found happily cackling to himself for a couple of nights. The Big Over Easy is great not just because it's very funny (albeit with some excruciating puns) but also because it works properly as a whodunit.Comic genius'. Over in England the reaction is more positive with the Guardian newspaper reviewer saying, 'I love it.

More literary silliness from the author of The Eyre Affairįforde's latest book leaves the reviewers at Kirkus and Publishers Weekly distinctly unmoved, while both agree that the concept is clever, the former describes it as 'shallow and snarky' and the latter writes it off as 'not compelling in the least'.

The big over easy book