The Gingerbreadman - psychopath, sadist, convicted murderer and cake/biscuit - is loose on the streets of Reading. It isn't Jack Spratt's case. Despite the success of the Humpty Dumpty investigation, the well publicised failure to prevent Red Riding-Hood and her Gran being eaten once again plunges the Nursery Crime Division into controversy. Enforced non-involvement with the Gingerbreadman hunt looks to be frustrating until a chance encounter at the oddly familiar Deja-Vu Club leads them onto the hunt for missing journalist Henrietta 'Goldy' Hatchett, star reporter for The Daily Toad. 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. Are the unexplained explosions around the globe somehow related to missing nuclear scientist Angus McGuffin? Is cucumber-growing really that dangerous? Why are National Security involved? But most important of all: How could the bears' porridge be at such disparate temperatures when they were poured at the same time?

From Publishers Weekly

Like The Big Over Easy (2005), Fforde's first Nursery Crime novel, this sequel offers literary allusions, confusions and gentle satire, though, again like its predecessor, it lacks the snap of the author's Thursday Next series (The Eyre Affair, etc.). Jack Spratt, DCI of the Nursery Crime Division of the Reading Police Department, is also a PDR (Person of Dubious Reality), as are most of the characters Jack deals with, including the Gingerbreadman, a notorious killer, and Punch and Judy, a violence prone couple who are also marriage counselors. An alien policeman named Ashley, talking bears, a devoted group of cucumber-growing enthusiasts and an immensely powerful company, Quang Tech, add spice. All are grist for Fforde, whose word play runs the gamut from puns to shaggy dog stories. The Gingerbreadman's on the loose, Goldilocks is missing and Jack's once again persona non grata at headquarters. As Jack and his associates "bring justice to the nursery world," they also cast a Swiftian eye on corporate hubris, race relations, the drug trade and myriad other targets. (Aug.)
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From Booklist

Still on leave from his wildly inventive Thursday Next series (Something Rotten, 2004), Fforde offers a second entry in his wildly inventive Nursery Crime series (The Big Over Easy, 2005). The sadistic and superpowerful Gingerbreadman, nemesis of Jack Spratt, has escaped from St. Cerebellum's secure hospital for the criminally insane. Unfortunately, Spratt has been suspended pending psychological evaluation for his role in the Red Riding Hood fiasco. Though at first he resists doing "a plot device number twenty-six" and hunting for the Gingerbreadman on his own, eventually Spratt has no choice but to follow the rules of detective convention. All he and his mismatched team have to do is find the links between exploding extreme-cucumber-growers, a missing reporter nicknamed Goldilocks, a theme park called SommeWorld, and, oh yes, porridge dealers. Chockablock with puns, literary allusions, groanworthy asides, and playful dismantling of the police procedural--wearing its love for an almost-extinct form of children's literature like a tattoo--The Fourth Bear will appeal to fans of whimsy, silliness, or plain old nonsense. Keir Graff
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