The Big Over Easy (Jasper Fforde) - Penguin Books - 2005 - 386 pages

Detective Inspector Jack Spratt works for the Reading Police Department in the Nursery Crime Division.  Humperdinck Aloysius Dumpty is found dead near a wall.  It looks like an open and shut case but maybe not.  As in his Thursday Next series, author Fforde uses numerous literary references to tie together a very entertaining story in an alternate timeline.  Do not try to read this one to your 5-year-old child unless you are prepared to answer a multitude of questions.  I did not see how the author could turn this well-known nursery rhyme into a 400-page detective story but he did it.  I like the way his mind works. [JAM 6/9/2012]