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86th out of 920 books
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5,221 voters
The Big Over Easy (Nursery Crime #1)
Jasper Fforde does it again with a dazzling new series starring Inspector Jack Spratt, head of the Nursery Crime Division.
Jasper Fforde’s bestselling Thursday Next series has delighted readers of every genre with its literary derring-do and brilliant flights of fancy. In The Big Over Easy, Fforde takes a break from classic literature and tumbles into the seedy underbelly o...more
Jasper Fforde’s bestselling Thursday Next series has delighted readers of every genre with its literary derring-do and brilliant flights of fancy. In The Big Over Easy, Fforde takes a break from classic literature and tumbles into the seedy underbelly o...more
Paperback, 383 pages
Published
July 25th 2006
by Penguin
(first published July 21st 2005)
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Was it an EGGcident…or cold-yoked murder?
When Humpty Dumpty, local businessman and infamous lothario, is found dead beneath a wall outside his Grimm’s Road apartment, Detective Jack Spratt of the Reading (pronounced Redding) Nursery Crime Division (NCD) is called in to investigate. Jack is a smart, capable, no-fat eating investigator whose previous collars include the apprehensions of (i) serial wife-killer, Bluebeard, (ii) psychotic mass-murderer, The Gingerbread Man and (iii) a certain bridg...more
When Humpty Dumpty, local businessman and infamous lothario, is found dead beneath a wall outside his Grimm’s Road apartment, Detective Jack Spratt of the Reading (pronounced Redding) Nursery Crime Division (NCD) is called in to investigate. Jack is a smart, capable, no-fat eating investigator whose previous collars include the apprehensions of (i) serial wife-killer, Bluebeard, (ii) psychotic mass-murderer, The Gingerbread Man and (iii) a certain bridg...more
Jasper Fforde is just so much fun. His books are sorta like beach reads for book nerds. They're playful, punny, funny, silly, and smart. Also I saw him read in a small bookstore in SoHo a couple of years ago and he is hilarious. He talked about how he and his kids play games in supermarkets where they put really incongruous and semi-embarrasing things in other people's shopping carts (I think he called them 'trolleys' because of course he British or maybe Austrailian?), like adult diapers for y...more
14 likes · like · see review
A cleverly written book about the death of Humpty Dumpty and the detectives Jack Sprat and Mary Mary who are on the case. Many references are made to nursery rhyme characters. This author has another series and the first book is "The Eyre Affair" that has something to do with Jane Eyre being kidnapped.
2 likes · like · see review
May 19, 2008
Sfdreams
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
fans of puns and humor
Shelves:
reviewed
I read this book while waiting for the second Thursday Next novel to be available at the library.
Like the Thursday Next novels, Fforde presents a world where fiction blends with reality. In the Nursery Crime novels, nursery rhyme characters are "real", and there is a division of the police that deals specifically with crimes involving nursery characters.
In this first book of a series, Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall and shattered into bits. Was he pushed? Was it suicide? This is a case for the u...more
Like the Thursday Next novels, Fforde presents a world where fiction blends with reality. In the Nursery Crime novels, nursery rhyme characters are "real", and there is a division of the police that deals specifically with crimes involving nursery characters.
In this first book of a series, Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall and shattered into bits. Was he pushed? Was it suicide? This is a case for the u...more
3 likes · like · see review
Jul 15, 2008
Sarah
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
lovers of mysteries, people with a sense of the ridiculous
07/15: Finished it today. So damn funny, if you like puns and referential literary humor and British mysteries. Simultaneously a romp (yes, a romp!) through nursery rhymes and fairy tales, while sending up the ridiculousness of both old-school murder mysteries and modern-day police procedurals. Recommended to anyone who likes mysteries and fairy tales. Will definitely be checking out the next one from the library in short order.
07/14: Halfway through. Can't wait to finish. If Wales were not so v...more
07/14: Halfway through. Can't wait to finish. If Wales were not so v...more
5 likes · like · see review
This was hard for me to love at first. I knew it was trying to be funny, but I kept taking it too seriously. Previous to chapter 16 I was prepared to write this review: "Didn't like it as much as I wanted to." After my husband explained the nursery rhyme that was meant to be the heading to chapter 19, I lightened up and found myself laughing as I had hoped at the beginning. It's a bit like a Monty Python movie... or Zoolander... the first time it just seems like stupidity... but then you find yo...more
5 likes · like · see review
Amazon calls this "probably Fforde's weakest novel" - a statement I must say I highly disagree with. It's much better than Lost in a Good Book and almost on par with The Eyre Affair - something which I thought absolutely impossible.
I love how Fforde dares to use the media to get his point across and how he plays around with commonly known concepts and stories without ever blatantly showing his readers "This is what I'm talking about, I'm so obvious you have to get it now!". He perfectly masters...more
I love how Fforde dares to use the media to get his point across and how he plays around with commonly known concepts and stories without ever blatantly showing his readers "This is what I'm talking about, I'm so obvious you have to get it now!". He perfectly masters...more
5 likes · like · see review
Brilliant! For those unfamiliar with Fforde (like I was just two days ago), imagine Dirk Gently series written by Terry Pratchett.
4 likes · like · see review
Outstanding! This may be my next book club recommendation. Being a mom of a toddler makes it even more amusing - especially when reading Mother Goose before bedtime. I normally avoid mysteries but I highly recommend this one.
Despite the dry and everpresent humor, it still wasn't hard to come up with my favorite paragraph:
Despite the dry and everpresent humor, it still wasn't hard to come up with my favorite paragraph:
...more
ALIENS BORING, REPORT SHOWS
An official report confirms what most of us have already suspected: that the alien visitors who arrived unexpectedly on the planet four years ago ar
I read this book several years ago, and so don’t have a lot to say about it today. I reread it as part of my book club, but in the intervening years, the distance gave me some perspective that let me recognize or enjoy a few more jokes:
* Charles Pewter, of The Diary of an Ordinary Man shows up in the book, with a couple funny jokes about his house.
* I’ve come to appreciate the vast number of goofs on the genre that Fforde perpetrates. I still particularly like the attention to what car Jack dr...more
* Charles Pewter, of The Diary of an Ordinary Man shows up in the book, with a couple funny jokes about his house.
* I’ve come to appreciate the vast number of goofs on the genre that Fforde perpetrates. I still particularly like the attention to what car Jack dr...more
I usually enjoy stories of fairy tales set in a realistic world and The Big Over Easy was no exception. Here's a problem with waiting a month (and some change) before writing my thoughts on a book. I don't remember the book as well as I did a month ago! I'll muddle through somehow. I really liked how the fairy tale characters were a made a part of the real world without much of a blink from the regular world people. It's like they realize they are different, but not really. The interaction betwe...more
After reading a couple of really heavy stories, I felt the need for something light. Something fun. Something that I could sink my teeth into, only to find it was full of chocolate. And that’s why I picked up this book, at this time.
Many, many years ago I picked up Jasper Fforde’s ’The Eyre Affair’ at a small bookshop when I was desperate for something to read. I went on to devour the rest of the Thursday Next series, and fell in love with Fforde’s voice and style. He’s the type of storyteller w...more
Many, many years ago I picked up Jasper Fforde’s ’The Eyre Affair’ at a small bookshop when I was desperate for something to read. I went on to devour the rest of the Thursday Next series, and fell in love with Fforde’s voice and style. He’s the type of storyteller w...more
This book was charmingly misfiled at my local used book store (http://wordupbooks.wordpress.com/) in the Children's section. I understand why it was filed there. The cover looks very much like a children's book, illustrated with Humpty Dumpty, as it is and it IS stamped with the label of being a "Nursery Crime." What was funny was reading the book thinking it was a children's book for the first few chapters. There was quite a bit of swearing, lots of references to illicit sex. I was, for a short...more
I'm a big fan of Jasper Fforde's series about Thursday Next, Literary Detective, and have had the two installments (thus far) in his "Nursery Crimes" series waiting on one of my TBR shelves for awhile. They're fairly quick, clever, and amusing reads, full of outlandish situations and characters, plus some groaningly bad jokes.
I really never read many nursery rhymes or fairy tales to my son when he was young - you may have noticed the dark undercurrent many of them have. If you haven't, Fforde wi...more
I really never read many nursery rhymes or fairy tales to my son when he was young - you may have noticed the dark undercurrent many of them have. If you haven't, Fforde wi...more
I didn't like this nearly as much as the Thursday Next series (one of my favorite series of all time), but it was still a funny, entertaining, whimsical read. Humpty Dumpty has been murdered, and detectives Jack Spratt and Mary Mary are on the case in a world inhabited by nursery rhyme and fairy tale characters-- lots of absurdity and humor and hard-boiled detective work.
There are two main reasons why I think this book doesn't grab me the way The Eyre Affair and its sequels did.
1) Nursery rhymes...more
There are two main reasons why I think this book doesn't grab me the way The Eyre Affair and its sequels did.
1) Nursery rhymes...more
Once again, I can’t recommend Fforde as an author highly enough. He has a wonderful way with both characters and words – not to mention his gift at working in literary allusion. I had a hard time keeping up with all the nursery rhyme references, and I made my mom read them to me every night and had grandparents that recited them to me constantly! (Along with verses about the wages of sin…) I must warn you, however, these are not spin offs from the Thursday Next series. Spratt and Mary are comple...more
5 Things To Know Before Reading This Book
1. It is a murder mystery.
2. The victim is an enormous egg named Humpty Dumpty. (He fell off a wall … or was pushed or possibly shot.)
3. The detective investigating the crime is named Jack Spratt. His partner is Mary Mary.
4. Jack and Mary work for the Nursery Crimes Division (NCD).
5. You should brush up on your nursery rhymes and fairy tales before reading so as to fully enjoy the book. (It took me almost halfway through to dredge up the fact that Jack’s...more
1. It is a murder mystery.
2. The victim is an enormous egg named Humpty Dumpty. (He fell off a wall … or was pushed or possibly shot.)
3. The detective investigating the crime is named Jack Spratt. His partner is Mary Mary.
4. Jack and Mary work for the Nursery Crimes Division (NCD).
5. You should brush up on your nursery rhymes and fairy tales before reading so as to fully enjoy the book. (It took me almost halfway through to dredge up the fact that Jack’s...more
6 likes · like · see review
I started out thinking this book was incredibly cheesy. I had heard it was funny, witty, and clever but the first couple chapters just didn't hold my attention. However, I'm glad I persevered because it ended up being a charming book.
Jack Spratt is the lead detective of the Nursery Crimes Division of the Reading police. While not as laudable as his colleagues in the regular division who are all a part of the Detectives guild, he nonetheless enjoys his job and does it to the best of his ability....more
Jack Spratt is the lead detective of the Nursery Crimes Division of the Reading police. While not as laudable as his colleagues in the regular division who are all a part of the Detectives guild, he nonetheless enjoys his job and does it to the best of his ability....more
In case you were worried: No, Jasper Fforde has not run out of weird, twisted things to do to defenseless Literature.
Jack Spratt, his second wife, and their five children (two his, two hers, one theirs) are living happily in Reading, England. Well, reasonably happily. Jack, a policeman, has the dubious honor of being the head of the Nursery Crimes unit. He and his tiny unit believe in the importance of their jobs, but no one else does. And they've just experienced the embarrassing, and more impo...more
Jack Spratt, his second wife, and their five children (two his, two hers, one theirs) are living happily in Reading, England. Well, reasonably happily. Jack, a policeman, has the dubious honor of being the head of the Nursery Crimes unit. He and his tiny unit believe in the importance of their jobs, but no one else does. And they've just experienced the embarrassing, and more impo...more
In The Big Over Easy Jasper Fforde introduces another slightly skewed (and book-based) world. Detective Inspector John Reginald ("Jack") Spratt works in the Nursery Crime Division, and while some of the fundamentals remain the same, policing is a bit different in Fforde's universe. As Superintendent Briggs explains to Spratt's new assistant, Mary Mary:
Modern policing isn't just about catching criminals, Mary. It's about good copy and ensuring that cases can be made into top-notch documentaries o...more
Modern policing isn't just about catching criminals, Mary. It's about good copy and ensuring that cases can be made into top-notch documentaries o...more
Jasper Fforde is a comic literary genius! I love all of his books and have re-read them into tatters. His ideas are unique and he has the right balance between laugh-out-loud funny, guawfing, chuckling, and sniggering. It is perfect!
Jack Spratt is an overworked, underpaid police detective. He runs the Nursery Crime Division of the Reading Police Department on no budget and with as little help as Briggs can give him. He is also the loving father of five, happily married, and happens to have an ap...more
Jack Spratt is an overworked, underpaid police detective. He runs the Nursery Crime Division of the Reading Police Department on no budget and with as little help as Briggs can give him. He is also the loving father of five, happily married, and happens to have an ap...more
A little like Terry Pratchett for detective novel enthusiasts. I'm so happy I've found this author! In this first book of the "Nursery Crime" series, Detective Jack Spratt is assigned to look into the untimely death of Humpty Dumpty. After coming off an unsuccessful prosecution of the three little pigs for the first-degree murder of Mr. Wolff (by vicious, premeditated boiling), Spratt is depressed and harried. His job heading up the underfunded and woefully understaffed Nursery Crimes Division i...more
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386 pages.
Fract5ured fairy tales, with real people wandering around in them. What a hoot.
"Meet Detective Inspector Jack Spratt, family man and head of the Nursery Crime Division, long suffering under the shadow of the flashy Detective Friedland Chymes with his astonishing number of published cases in Amazing Crime Stories. Spratt is fresh from a spectacular failure to see convicted three wily pigs for the murder of a certain wolf. The media and tide of public opinion are set squarely against him...more
Fract5ured fairy tales, with real people wandering around in them. What a hoot.
"Meet Detective Inspector Jack Spratt, family man and head of the Nursery Crime Division, long suffering under the shadow of the flashy Detective Friedland Chymes with his astonishing number of published cases in Amazing Crime Stories. Spratt is fresh from a spectacular failure to see convicted three wily pigs for the murder of a certain wolf. The media and tide of public opinion are set squarely against him...more
Very fun and great ending! Keeps you guessing!
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, and, well, you know the rest. But was Humpty's fall an accident, or was it murder? It's up to Jack Spratt of the Nursery Crime Division to get to the bottom of it.
Jack has been very unlucky to be working in the shadow of popular Detective Friedland Chymes, and has just spectacularly lost a major case where the murderous three little pigs got off the hook for the death of the unfortunate Big Bad Wolf. With the Department a...more
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, and, well, you know the rest. But was Humpty's fall an accident, or was it murder? It's up to Jack Spratt of the Nursery Crime Division to get to the bottom of it.
Jack has been very unlucky to be working in the shadow of popular Detective Friedland Chymes, and has just spectacularly lost a major case where the murderous three little pigs got off the hook for the death of the unfortunate Big Bad Wolf. With the Department a...more
There are dead end jobs and then there’s The Dead End Job. Years ago, the city of Reading’s Nursery Crime (yes, you read that right) Division was headed by the a more successful sleuth than Jack Spratt. Unfortunately, he’s just lost one case too many (it turns out that those three murderous pigs were a jury favorite while the vegetarian wolf failed to overcome public stereotyping) and it looks like, not only his job but his whole division, is headed for early retirement. It’s not that Jack is a...more
As a fan of sci-fi and fantasy novels, I thought this would be a fun, easy read. A cross between an american screen noir detective mystery and.... and... what?
The characters come straight from nursery rhymes, but with the twist that they have a life, in Reading, beyond the rhyme descriptions. The hero (Det.Ins. Jack Spratt) and heroine (Side-kick Sgt. Mary Mary) are believable and admirable.
The premise is that someone murdered Humpty Dumpty as he slept, drunk, on his favourite wall. But after th...more
The characters come straight from nursery rhymes, but with the twist that they have a life, in Reading, beyond the rhyme descriptions. The hero (Det.Ins. Jack Spratt) and heroine (Side-kick Sgt. Mary Mary) are believable and admirable.
The premise is that someone murdered Humpty Dumpty as he slept, drunk, on his favourite wall. But after th...more
"The Big Over Easy" is first and foremost a mystery novel, or at least a sendup of one. Most mysteries now-days have a "hook" - horse racing, mysteriously prescient cats, and catering, just to name a few - and "Over Easy's" is - as the series name implies - Nursery Rhymes. As in the author's "Thursday Next" series, the attempt is to create a world in which literature, with all its tropes and memes and plot devices, is literally true. The action takes place in a modern English town (Reading, to b...more
Inspector Jack Spratt is investigating the death of Humpty Dumpty found shattered to death near the wall he was sitting on in a bad part of town. Jack has lot of obstacles to face in this investigation including holding little respect as the lead detective for the Nursery Crime Division. With few resources, a new partner, and lots of suspects Jack works tirelessly to solve the case.
This book was so much fun. Fforde has such an amazing imagination and it made this book feel so different and total...more
This book was so much fun. Fforde has such an amazing imagination and it made this book feel so different and total...more
The Big Over Easy, thee first of the Nursery Crimes books, set in a fictional world within the fictional world of the Thursday Next books. As such, this world has experienced immigration of Nusery Rhyme characters, aliens and other weird things.
I hadn't read this one before, because I think I was afraid it would be childish, which it really isn't. I'll just put my entire trust in Fforde now and read every single word he publishes. The man is a crazy genius, and this book contains all the impossi...more
I hadn't read this one before, because I think I was afraid it would be childish, which it really isn't. I'll just put my entire trust in Fforde now and read every single word he publishes. The man is a crazy genius, and this book contains all the impossi...more
Such a strange, but entertaining, spin on the world of nursery rhymes in a society of their own. Humpty Dumpty has died (you know how), and it's up to Jack Spratt and Mary Mary to investigate on behalf of the Nursery Crimes Division (NCD) of the police. The way the story is woven, though multiple nursery rhymes and other famous fantastical works, is ingenious. Characters are given life in a manner you would not think possible, and for that Jasper Fforde is to be commended. The book is very funny...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCI CHYMES ATTRACTIVE OR LIAR?! | 1 | 14 | Nov 02, 2012 09:32pm | |
| Dr Quatt SPOLILERS MAYBE | 2 | 21 | Sep 25, 2012 11:09am |
Jasper Fforde is a novelist living in Wales. He is the son of John Standish Fforde, the 24th Chief Cashier for the Bank of England, whose signature used to appear on sterling banknotes, and is cousin of Desmond Fforde, married with the author Katie Fforde. His early career was spent as a focus puller in the film industry, where he worked on a number of films including Quills, GoldenEye, and Entrap...more
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“If it weren't for greed, intolerance, hate, passion and murder, you would have no works of art, no great buildings, no medical science, no Mozart, no Van Gough, no Muppets and no Louis Armstrong.”
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183 people liked it
“How many people want to read about three disreputable pigs and a dopey wolf with a disposition towards house demolition?”
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30 people liked it
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Perfect. You should be in heaven with this on...more
Nov 30, 2011 09:20am
Super, l...more
Nov 30, 2011 09:21am