Fforde's books are more than an ingenious idea. They are written with buoyant zest and are tautly plotted. They have empathefic heroes and heroines who nearly make terrible mistakes and suitably dastardly villains who do. They also have more twists and turns than Christie,and are embellished with the rich details of a Dickens or Pratchett.As Humpty Dumpty's life-story is revealed, the mystery becomes curiouser and curiouser, and the compulsion to find out what is going on increases. A real treat.

But it isn't Jack Spratt's case. EnForced nan-involvement looks to be Frustrating, until a chance encounter at the addly Familiar Deja Vu Club leads them into the hunt of missing journalist Henrietta 'Goldy' Hatchett, star reporter for the Daily Toao.                           

.!

The last witnesses to see her alive were the Three Dears,comfortably living a hFe oF rural sohtude ,n Andersen's wood. But all is not what it seems. Are the unexplained explosions around the world related to a missing nuclear scientist? How dangerous can cucumber-growing be?

And most important oF all: how could the bears' porriidge be at such disparate temperatures when they were Poured at the same time?

A death in Obscurity

A cautionary tale

St Cerebellum's

The Robert Southey

The Austin Allegro Equipe

The Gingerbreadman is out

Nursery Crime Division

Noisy neighbours

The Deja- Vu

Porridge problems

Goldilocks (absent)

Gingery aftertaste

II1110000

Virginia Kreeper

Three bears

Somme World

Home again

Early morning

The Rt Honourable

Sherman Bartholomew, MP

Taking stock

Driven to Obscurity

Quang Tech

Extreme cucumbers

Over-quotering

Back to the forest

Jack's explanation

What Mary did that night

What Jack did that night

What Ashley did that night

The Punches make peace

The Truth is out there

Parks again

Hardy Fuchsia and

Bisky-Batt

Return to the Bob Southey

Ursula

Totally over the top

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