About this item
Jack Spratt and Mary Mary return in their second adventure from the inimitable Jasper Fforde Five years ago Viking introduced Jasper Fforde and his upsidedown inside-out literary crime masterpieces And as they move from Thursday Next to Jack Sprattxs Nursery Crimes his audience is insatiable and growing Now with The Fourth Bear Jack Spratt and Mary Mary take on their most dangerous case so far as a murderous cookie stalks the streets of Reading The Gingerbreadmanxpsychopath sadist genius and killerxis on the loose But it isnxt Jack Sprattxs case He and Mary Mary have been demoted to Missing Persons following Jackxs poor judgment involving the poisoning of Mr Bun the baker Missing Persons looks like a boring assignment until a chance encounter leads them into the hunt for missing journalist Henrietta Goldy Hatchett star reporter for The Daily Mole Last to see her alive The Three Bears comfortably living out a life of rural solitude in Andersenxs wood But all is not what it seems How could the bearsx porridge be at such disparate temperatures when they were poured at the same time Why did Mr and Mrs Bear sleep in separate beds Was there a fourth bear And if there was who was he and why did he try to disguise Goldyxs death as a freak accident Jack answers all these questions and a few others besides rescues Mary Mary from almost certain death and finally meets the Fourth Bear and the Gingerbreadman face-to-face.
About the Author
Fforde began his career in the film industry, and for nineteen years held a variety of posts on such movies as Goldeneye, The Mask of Zorro and Entrapment. Secretly harbouring a desire to tell his own stories rather than help other people tell their's, Jasper started writing in 1988, and spent eleven years secretly writing novel after novel as he strove to find a style of his own that was a no-mans-land somewhere between the warring factions of Literary and Absurd. After receiving 76 rejection letters from publishers, Jasper's first novel The Eyre Affair was taken on by Hodder & Stoughton and published in July 2001. Set in 1985 in a world that is similar to our own, but with a few crucial - and bizarre - differences (Wales is a socialist republic, the Crimean War is still ongoing and the most popular pets are home-cloned dodos) , The Eyre Affair introduces literary detective named 'Thursday Next'. Thursday's job includes spotting forgeries of Shakespeare's lost plays, mending holes in narrative plot lines, and rescuing characters who have been kidnapped from literary masterpieces. Luckily for Jasper, the novel garnered dozens of effusive reviews, and received high praise from the press, from booksellers and readers throughout the UK. In the US The Eyre Affair was also an instant hit, entering the New York Times Bestseller List in its first week of publication. Since then, Jasper has added another six to the Thursday Next series and has also begun a second series that he calls 'Nursery Crime', featuring Jack Spratt of The Nursery Crime Division. In the first book, 'The Big Over Easy', Humpty Dumpty is the victim in a whodunnit, and in the second, 'The Fourth Bear', the Three Bear's connection to Goldilocks disappearance can finally be revealed. In January 2010 Fforde published 'Shades of Grey', in which a fragmented society struggle to survive in a colour-obsessed post-apocalyptic landscape. His latest series is for Young Adults and include 'The Last Dragonslayer' (2010) , 'Song of the Quarkbeast' (2011) and 'The Eye of Zoltar' (2013) . All the books centre around Jennifer Strange, who manages a company of magicians named 'Kazam', and her attempts to keep the noble arts from the clutches of big business and property tycoons. Jasper's 14th Book, 'Early Riser', a thriller set in a world in which humans have always hibernated, is due out in the UK in August 2018, and in the US in 2019. Fforde failed his Welsh Nationality Test by erroneously identifying Gavin Henson as a TV chef, but continues to live and work in his adopted nation despite this setback. He has a Welsh wife, two welsh daughters and a welsh dog, who is mad but not because he's Welsh. He has a passion for movies, photographs, and aviation. (Jasper, not the dog)
