The Big Over Easy

Infobox Book |
name = The Big Over Easy
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = The American cover of "The Big Over Easy"
author = Jasper Fforde
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = UK
language = English
series = Nursery Crimes
subject =
genre = Fantasy
publisher = Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
release_date = 11 July 2005
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages =
isbn = ISBN 0-340-83567-2 (UK Hardback)
preceded_by =
followed_by = The Fourth Bear

"The Big Over Easy" is a novel written by Jasper Fforde and published in 2005. It features Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his assistant, Sergeant Mary Mary.

It is set in an alternate reality similar to that of his previous books: "The Eyre Affair", "Lost in a Good Book", "The Well of Lost Plots" and "Something Rotten".

According to Fforde, "The Big Over Easy" is the result of the book "Caversham Heights" featured in "The Well of Lost Plots" and includes a possible cameo appearance of the author's heroine Thursday Next, thus verifying this claim. [ [http://www.nurserycrime.co.uk/special/js1.html 'Big Over Easy' Special Features Section ] ]

The book was the first novel Fforde wrote, however, he failed in its publication. It has been massively re-written following the success of the Thursday Next novels. A follow-up, entitled "The Fourth Bear", was published in July 2006.

Plot summary

It's Easter in Reading - a bad time for eggs - and the shattered, tuxedo-clad corpse of local businessman Humpty Dumpty has been found lying beneath a wall in a shabby part of town. Humpty was one of life's good guys - so who would want him knocked off?

Characters in "The Big Over Easy"

*Detective Inspector Jack Spratt, head of the Nursery Crime Division and also a nursery rhyme character himself. His name is a reference to the Jack Sprat rhyme but the character also fulfils the role of Jack in Jack and the Beanstalk and Jack the Giant Killer.
*Sergeant Mary Mary, based upon the rhyme Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.

Major themes

The overriding theme is that nursery rhymes and fairy stories are based upon real people who are living relatively normal lives in the present. Other original variables include the fact that detectives may sell the cases they solve to such magazines as "Amazing Crime Stories", as well the involvement of Jack's now famous former partner and current rival Friedland Chymes (named after a manufacturer of musical door chimes), who attempts to take control of the Humpty Dumpty case.

Release details

*11 July 2005, Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, ISBN 0-340-83567-2, hardback

ee also

*BookWorld

Notes

External links

* [http://www.nurserycrime.co.uk/index.html The official Nursery Crime Division website]