Welcome to the seedy underbelly of nursery crime. From the New York Times bestselling author of the Thursday Next series comes a rollicking novel—“as if the Marx brothers were let loose in the children’s section of a strange bookstore” (USA Today). “A wonderfully readable riot . . . cleverly plotted, magically overstuffed yet amazingly digestible . . . [for] anyone who wants the thrill of a good crime novel larded with highly literate humor.”—The Wall Street Journal Meet Inspector Jack Spratt, family man and head of Reading’s Nursery Crime division. He’s investigating the murder of ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Dumpty, ex-convict and lover of women, found shattered to death beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. Yes, the big egg is down, and all those brittle pieces sitting in the morgue point to foul play. Spratt and his new partner, Sergeant Mary Mary, search through Humpty’s sordid past in hopes of finding the key to his death. Before long, Jack and Mary find themselves immersed in a bizarre case that reaches into the highest echelons of Reading society and business.

The Gingerbreadman: Psychopath, sadist, genius, convicted murderer and biscuit is loose in the streets of Reading. It isn't Jack Spratt's case. He and Mary Mary have been reassigned due to falling levels of nursery crime, and The NCD is once more in jeopardy. That is, until a chance encounter during the Armitage Shanks literary awards at the oddly familiar Deja-Vu Club lead Jack and Mary on the hunt for missing journalist Henrietta 'Goldilocks' Hatchett, star reporter for The Daily Toad. She had been about to break a story involving unexplained explosions in Herefordshire, Pasadena and the Nullabor Plain; The last witnesses to see her alive were The Three Bears, comfortably living out a life of rural solitude in Andersen's wood. But all is not what it seems. How could the bear's porridge be at such disparate temperatures when they were poured at the same time? Was Goldy's death in the nearby 1st World War themepark of Sommeworld a freak accident? And is it merely chance that the Gingerbreadman pops up at awkward moments? But there's more. What does a missing scientist with a terrifying discovery in subatomic physics, a secret weapon of devastating power, a reclusive industrialist known only as the Quangle Wangle and Colonel Danvers of the National Security all have in common?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of The Constant Rabbit comes “Harry Potter just for adults . . . [an] immensely enjoyable, almost compulsive experience” (The New York Times Book Review)—the second novel in the renowned Thursday Next series. “[Lost in a Good Book] is satire, fantasy, literary criticism, thriller, whodunit, game, puzzle, joke, postmodern prank, and tilt-a-whirl.”—The Washington Post If resourceful, fearless literary detective Thursday Next thought she could avoid the spotlight after her heroic escapades in the pages of Jane Eyre, she was sorely mistaken. Her adventures as a renowned Special Operative in literary detection have left Thursday Next yearning for a rest. But when the love of her life is eradicated by the corrupt multinational Goliath Corporation, Thursday must bite the bullet and moonlight as a Prose Resource Operative in the secret world of Jurisfiction, the police force inside the books. There she is apprenticed to Miss Havisham, the famous man-hater from Dickens’s Great Expectations, who teaches her to book-jump like a pro. If Thursday retrieves a supposedly vanquished enemy from the pages of Poe’s “The Raven,” she thinks Goliath might return her lost love, Landen. But her latest mission is endlessly complicated. Not only are there side trips into the works of Kafka and Austen, and even Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Flopsy Bunnies, Thursday finds herself the target of a series of potentially lethal coincidences, the authenticator of a newly discovered play by the Bard himself, and the only one who can prevent an unidentifiable pink sludge from engulfing all life on Earth. Don’t miss any of Jasper Fforde’s delightfully entertaining Thursday Next novels: THE EYRE AFFAIR • LOST IN A GOOD BOOK • THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS • SOMETHING ROTTEN • FIRST AMONG SEQUELS • ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING • THE WOMAN WHO DIED A LOT

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Ex-detective Thursday Next faces her trickiest assignment yet in the seventh novel of this renowned series, “[a] bibliophile’s Wonderland” (The Plain Dealer). “It’s safe to say that if you enjoy that particularly British, Douglas Adams–style absurd delivery of wry observations, you’ll get a kick out of [The Woman Who Died a Lot].”—New York Journal of Books Thursday Next, the Bookworld’s leading enforcement officer, has been forced into semiretirement following an assassination attempt. When her former SpecOps division is reinstated, she assumes she’s the obvious choice to lead the Literary Detectives. Sadly, our banged-up heroine is no spring chicken, and her old boss has a cushier job in mind: Chief Librarian of the Swindon All-You-Can-Eat-at-Fatso’s Drink Not Included Library. But where Thursday goes, trouble follows. As the new Chief Librarian faces 100 percent budget cuts and trouble from the ever-evil Jack Schitt, the Next children face their own career hiccups—and possible nonexistence. Don’t miss any of Jasper Fforde’s delightfully entertaining Thursday Next novels: THE EYRE AFFAIR • LOST IN A GOOD BOOK • THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS • SOMETHING ROTTEN • FIRST AMONG SEQUELS • ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING • THE WOMAN WHO DIED A LOT

The third novel in the New York Times bestselling Thursday Next series is “great fun—especially for those with a literary turn of mind and a taste for offbeat comedy” (The Washington Post Book World). “Delightful . . . the well of Fforde’s imagination is bottomless.”—People “Fforde creates a literary reality that is somewhere amid a triangulation of Douglas Adams, Monty Python, and Miss Marple.”—The Denver Post With the 923rd Annual Bookworld Awards just around the corner and an unknown villain wreaking havoc in Jurisfiction, what could possibly be next for Detective Thursday Next? Protecting the world’s greatest literature—not to mention keeping up with Miss Havisham—is tiring work for an expectant mother. And Thursday can definitely use a respite. So what better hideaway than inside the unread and unreadable Caversham Heights, a cliché-ridden pulp mystery in the hidden depths of the Well of Lost Plots, where all unpublished books reside? But peace and quiet remain elusive for Thursday, who soon discovers that the Well itself is a veritable linguistic free-for-all, where grammasites run rampant, plot devices are hawked on the black market, and lousy books—like Caversham Heights—are scrapped for salvage. To top it off, a murderer is stalking Jurisfiction personnel and nobody is safe—least of all Thursday. Don’t miss any of Jasper Fforde’s delightfully entertaining Thursday Next novels: THE EYRE AFFAIR • LOST IN A GOOD BOOK • THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS • SOMETHING ROTTEN • FIRST AMONG SEQUELS • ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING • THE WOMAN WHO DIED A LOT

As magic fades from the world, 15-year-old Jennifer Strange is having trouble keeping her magician employment agency business afloat, until she begins having visions that foretell the death of the last dragon and the coming of Big Magic.