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Loading... The Fourth Bear (2006)by Jasper Fforde
  
 LisCarey | Sep 19, 2018 |  I am a sucker for these books. Fantasy, mystery, fables, and fairy tales. Put them in a blender. Drop in some humor and a touch of alien. Bam a great read for anyone who is a sucker (that would be me). I know Thursday Next is his big series but I love these books more. (  ) CSDaley | Mar 28, 2018 | I love, love, love Jasper Fforde! My greatest wish is that all my clever, witty, literature loving friends would read his books and experience the laugh out loud, stunned happiness I had reading this (and all his) work. ( ) lissabeth21 | Oct 3, 2017 | Oh, how I wish he would add to this series. This is a Jack Spratt murder mystery involving Detective Jack Spratt and a villainous life-size Gingerbread Man. his title focuses on the questionable demise of Humpty Dumpty. Jack Spratt and Mary Mary are on the case. ( ) BoundTogetherForGood | Sep 30, 2017 | This book was hilarious--lots of sarcasm and puns used in with the nursery crimes characters. Just the fact that Goldilocks supports the right to arm bears is funny in itself. Jack Spratt and Mary Mary are hot on the trail of this murder and murderous Gingerbread Man is on a killing spree. Loved it!!! (  ) lhaines56 | Jan 11, 2017 |
 Fforde is crazy; he’s all over the place. He’s aware of the conventions he’s mocking, he mocks them openly, and he still has a really decent romp of a mystery novel on his hands.  Though his characters' self-awareness may ultimately defeat the suspense of The Fourth Bear, the loss of the more standard forms of mystery magic is more than compensated for by Fforde's superb comedic skills. Great fun for all fiction collections. Chockablock with puns, literary allusions, groanworthy asides, and playful dismantling of the police procedural . . . The Fourth Bear will appeal to fans of whimsy, silliness, or plain old nonsense. This sequel offers literary allusions, confusions and gentle satire, though, again like its predecessor, it lacks the snap of the author's Thursday Next series. Was inspired by
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0143038923, Paperback)The inimitable Jasper Fforde gives readers another delightful mash-up of detective fiction and nursery rhyme, returning to those mean streets where no character is innocent. The Gingerbreadman—sadist, psychopath, cookie—is on the loose in Reading, but that’s not who Detective Jack Spratt and Sergeant Mary Mary are after. Instead, they’ve been demoted to searching for missing journalist “Goldy” Hatchett. The last witnesses to see her alive were the reclusive Three Bears, and right away Spratt senses something furry—uh, funny—about their story, starting with the porridge. The Fourth Bear is a delirious new romp from our most irrepressible fabulist. (retrieved from Amazon Thu, 12 Mar 2015 18:18:24 -0400) Jack Spratt and Mary Mary return in their second Nursery Crime adventure.--From publisher description. |
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Wikipedia in English (1)
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Naturally, this can't last, and as a direct result of doing his job, Jack has been placed on medical leave. (He successfully captured the Big Bad Wolf—unfortunately after both Grandma and Little Red Riding Hood had been swallowed. He had to go in after them and rescue them, and they're now apparently catatonic.) Jack can't return to duty until he has a session with a psychiatrist and she pronounces him fit for duty. This has happened at an especially inconvenient time, because the Gingerbreadman, the vicious serial killer whose capture was the first big success of Jack's career, has escaped. Meanwhile, mysterious explosions are killing competitive cucumber growers, an old irritant, Josh Hatchett of The Toad, is asking for a favor—his sister is missing. His sister whose nickname is Goldilocks is missing—last seen fleeing the cabin of the Bruin family. Jack delves into the world of bear porridge smuggling, competitive cucumber growing, the new theme park, SommeWorld, being built by QuangTech to discourage romantic images of war, and a painful encounter with his own true nature (as a PDR—Person of Dubious Reality.) And of course, Caliban has taken up residence in his house, and Punch and Judy have moved in next door.
This is fast-paced, entertaining silliness—great fun, and excellent light reading for a hot summer weekend.
Recommended. (