Master of 'Crime' Author Jasper Fforde seems to get better as he goes along

By ELIZABETH FOX
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
If you've read any of Jasper Fforde's previous books, then this review of his latest, "The Fourth Bear," is entirely unnecessary. Why? Because you will drop everything and rush out to get the novel before finishing this sentence. For you, Fforde needs no recommendation: His five other delightful books will have done that for him. However, for those of you who have yet to encounter the wonderful world of Fforde's writing, let me explain.
Fforde's books are to the literary world what Douglas Adams' were to science fiction -- a humorous rendering of a wacky, crazy world with few moorings in reality. Fforde actually brings the world of literature alive in his mysteries, with characters drawn from a wide array of novels, poems and stories inhabiting a fictional but parallel England. It is its own exciting, exhilarating and entirely enthralling world -- a little weird and a lot clever. His latest, "The Fourth Bear," is no exception.
This second book in Fforde's Nursery Crime Series is championed again by Inspector Jack Spratt and his co-workers, Sergeant Mary Mary and Ashley the alien. Together they run the Nursery Crime Department, a special branch of the local police created to deal with offenses relating to nursery characters, such as Jack's killing of the giants or Humpty's tragic fall from the wall. But those events were covered in Fforde's last Nursery Crime book, "The Big Over Easy."
Goldilocks' death
This time, Jack investigates the murder of Goldilocks, a journalist killed just as she was about to reveal a huge story involving the dark truth about extreme competitive cucumber growing. Tied into the story of her death are national security officers; a huge national corporation building a war theme park, Sommeworld; the escape of the psychopathic murderer Gingerbreadman from a high-security prison; and Goldilocks' own inevitable story involving three bears and porridge of varying temperatures.
Jack works hard to figure it all out, even though he's technically been suspended over a bungled operation that made his superiors question his mental competency. In addition, Jack's dealing with a diabolical yet self-repairing car sold to him by Dorian Gray; his noisy and abusive neighbors Punch and Judy; marital troubles; and a dark secret about his own identity. While all of this is sad for Jack, it's a lot of fun for the reader.
One would think that Fforde would have run out of literary ideas, characters, and puns by now, but he keeps whipping them out with the same remarkable skill and aplomb.
In fact, he only seems to get better as he goes along. Fforde clearly has enormous fun with words, whether he's abusing the "Peter Piper" tongue twister or debating the merits of the "right to arm bears." It's hard to go half a page without some joke or other.
Budding romance
Having established his characters in his last book, Fforde also feels freer to play with them here. It helps that the reader grows more attached to them this time around. After all, the budding romance between Mary Mary and Ashley is more fun once the reader knows and adores them both.
The one caution in approaching Fforde's book is that it should be read as quickly as possible. Too many breaks can make the fast-paced twists and turns of the plot confusing, and it's disorienting to jump in and out of Fforde's madcap world too many times. The book is so good that this probably won't be a problem, but it seems right to issue a warning.
Said warning is, of course, wasted on those previous Fforde readers who dropped the paper and ran during the first paragraph. But for the rest, let me exhort you: Go! Go get the book! Then block out one or two hours to do nothing but read it. You can thank me later, preferably in the form of a literary joke or two.
Fox is a writer at The Philadelphia Inquirer.