"The Big Over Easy" - Jasper Fforde, 2005

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall...

Detective Inspector Jack Spratt of Reading Police Force Nursery Crime Division investigates the murder of Humpty Dumpty. In a world which is home to a variety of characters from folklore and mythology, this could be interesting...but it isn't.

Reading this book is akin to being trapped at a party by an affable man who isn't as funny as he believes. True, there are some nicely executed moments that raise a smile, but too many of these come from the "stinker" variety of jokes. In places it seems as if he's trying to re-write "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", but the characters he has chosen to include open myriad possibilities for the narrative, which are ignored in favour of a rambling series of pretty weak gags. There is no coherence to his world, and when one thinks about it, very little in the way of depth or imagination.

Moreover, it doesn't even appear to work as a crime story. Conclusions are reached in a flash of inspiration, and whatever investigating goes on is a trudge from A to B, and just when you think it can't get any sillier, the denouement comes gallumphing in.

Despite what some critics say, this book isn't all it's cracked up to be.