The continuing adventures of Thusday Next, literary detective, based in an altogether more colourful alternative world to our own, though one that still has Swindon in it. A world where literary crimes can spill out of fiction and into the real and the real can sometimes spill into the world of fiction. This is classic comedy of the absurd in the great British tradition of the likes of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett.
I find I do love these books of Jasper Fforde (including his similar Nursery Crimes books), but I can’t take too much of them. Every now and then a blast of absurdity is a good and refreshing thing to immerse oneself in but too much and there’s risk of drowning. I didn’t drown this time and thoroughly enjoyed myself but also found myself slightly annoyed at the end by the number of unfinished threads that were clearly being left for the next volume. Irritating because, for the aforementioned reasons, it will probably be a little while before I pick up that next one.
Finally, a word of warning these books will test your knowledge of literary classics just like the Nursery Crimes stories will test your knowledge of nursery rhymes. And I do wonder how many people will have appreciated the reference to the magic roundabout in Swindon!
3/5 stars
I find I do love these books of Jasper Fforde (including his similar Nursery Crimes books), but I can’t take too much of them. Every now and then a blast of absurdity is a good and refreshing thing to immerse oneself in but too much and there’s risk of drowning. I didn’t drown this time and thoroughly enjoyed myself but also found myself slightly annoyed at the end by the number of unfinished threads that were clearly being left for the next volume. Irritating because, for the aforementioned reasons, it will probably be a little while before I pick up that next one.
Finally, a word of warning these books will test your knowledge of literary classics just like the Nursery Crimes stories will test your knowledge of nursery rhymes. And I do wonder how many people will have appreciated the reference to the magic roundabout in Swindon!
3/5 stars
