Sometimes, especially in his Thursday Next series, Fforde does not explore the other characters too much. I mean, Thursday is well rounded, nearly three dimensional person, but a lot of the times, you don’t get much more than two-dimensional with the supporting ones. Ironically, in The Fourth Bear, the second novel in Jasper Fforde’s Nursery Crime series, he allows some of the supporting characters to move a bit forward.
After all the glory that Jack Spratt got solving of the Humpty Dumpty murder case four months ago is now gone, a series of blunders and mishaps – the biggest being the Red Riding Hood murder investigation where a few people were eaten by the wolf – has found the NCD under the gun to be disbanded. And because of the Riding Hood case, Jack is been ordered to take a psych evaluation and some time off. Shortly after this, the sinister psychopath The Gingerbread Man has escaped from the mental asylum that Jack put him into twenty years ago, and he's going on a rampage, while a death of a reporter named Goldilocks – a huge advocate for the bear population living in the area- gives DS Mary Mary (who finds romance with a fellow officer) a chance shine, whether she wants it or not. But a simple investigation uncovers a more sinister plot that may go high up. Also, why goes Jack keeping running into the Gingerbread Man, only to be left alive? And what do the intricacies of bear society, the illegal trafficking in black market porridge, and a theme park based on the Battle of the Somme have to do with each other?
The Fourth Bear is a stronger book than The Big Over Easy (as I’ve mentioned before about Fforde’s World Building style sometimes gets in the way of the plot), because I actually think the story is more effective. His weirdness, his silly humor, his ability to create a coherent universe that makes some sort of logical sense is what makes these books (and his Thursday Next books) a delight to read. These series of novels -what makes a good writer, I think- allows Fforde to let his imagination run wild and the reader is awarded greatly because of it.
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