• The Big Over Easy

  • A Nursery Crime
  • By: Jasper Fforde
  • Narrated by: Simon Prebble
  • Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (1,262 ratings)

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The Big Over Easy  By  cover art

The Big Over Easy

By: Jasper Fforde
Narrated by: Simon Prebble
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Publisher's summary

It's Easter in Reading, a bad time for eggs, and no one can remember the last sunny day. Ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Stuyvesant Van Dumpty III, minor baronet, ex-convict, and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered to death beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. All the evidence points to his ex-wife, who has conveniently shot herself.

But Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his assistant Mary Mary remain unconvinced, a sentiment not shared with their superiors at the Reading Police Department, who are still smarting over their failure to convict the Three Pigs of murdering Mr. Wolff. Before long Jack and Mary find themselves grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, bullion smuggling, problems with beanstalks, titans seeking asylum, and the cut and thrust world of international chiropody.

And on top of all that, the JellyMan is coming to town.

The familiar and utterly transformed characters and world of nursery crime is pure ingenious fun. Just when you thought he'd stretched his astonishing imagination to the limit, Jasper Fforde does it again with this dazzling new series.

©2005 Jasper Fforde. All Rights Reserved (P)2005 Penguin Audio and BBC Audiobooks America. All Rights Reserved.

Critic reviews

"Fforde's whimsical fifth novel, his first not to feature literary detective Thursday Next, is consistently witty....The result is unusually clever." (Publishers Weekly)
"Fforde is gaining fans, and even readers who start out groaning may find themselves grinning." (Booklist)

What listeners say about The Big Over Easy

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Total Whimsy

Brilliant. I think Jasper Fforde is the literary equivalent of "Monty Pythons Flying Circus". Long live DI Jack Spratt, Sgt Mary Mary and the other assorted wierdos of the Nursery Crime Division. And narrator Simon Prebble only adds to the foolishness.

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24 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Very entertaining

Like all of Mr. Fforde's stories, The Big Over Easy is light and witty. I found it very enjoyable to listen to at the gym and in my car. I love this narrator as well. It was a nice break after the 2 true crime books I listened to right before this one. I look forward hearing more from this author.

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

I Love Jasper Fforde

I was thrilled to find a new Jasper Fforde book on Audible, and can hardly wait for the next Nursery Crime Book. I was surprised to see a remark about no literary illusions in this book! What about little things like Humptey Dumptey's office on Grimm Road? I found the book utterly charming and couldn't put it down. It is different from the Thursday Next series, but just as whimsical.

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great book, and Excellent Narrator

Simon Prebble is a fabulous voice talent. His voices add depth and interest to an already fun book. I found this book to be as much fun as the 1st book in the Thursday Next series was.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

UNIQUELY ENTERTAINING

I thought this was a delightful listen all the way through. I realize that it won't be everyone's cup of tea, but if you have a taste for the absurd you should try it. Tuesday Next is one of my favorite series and the Nursery Crimes are just as fun. I eagerly await "The Fourth Bear" which will come out next summer. The narrator was perfect.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Fun

I love everything Jasper Fforde has written. He has a wonderful sense of humor and an amazing writing ability. There are lots of unexpected and entertaining twists. I highly recommend all of his books!

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Disappointing

I am a big fan of Jasper Fforde and have read all the books in his Thursday Next series. I was thrilled to have another book by this author to read, but gave up halfway through. The plot was boring and the wonderful, quirky allusions to fictional characters that populated the other books was lacking here. It seemed to me that he was writing down to his readers in this one. I would happily recommend his other books but not this one.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

One of my Favorites

I can listen to this story over and over. A who-dun-it with twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the very end.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

clever, as always

Jasper Fforde is one of my favorite modern authors. As always, he is clever and witty, and his characters are likable. As in his other series focusing on Literary detectives, he uses very clever puns and lots of literary allusions, so that you might miss a lot of humor if you don't know the stories.I did enjoy the Swindon/Eyre Affair books more, but I think the Nursery Crime stories will please Fforde's fan, and you don't need to know "literature" as much as remember nursery rhymes from your childhood.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Light-Hearted (Mostly) Murder

I am most familiar with Jasper Fforde from the Thursday Next stories, and much of the wit and literary world-view is also on display here. The Nursery Crime Division focuses on crimes committed by and to nursery rhyme characters, but Jack Spratt doesn't appear to know that he is one. Detective Sargent Mary Mary provides a good foil, but much of the book had me wishing that we were seeing events from her perspective.

While I wasn't blown away by this (as I admit I was by "The Eyre Affair"), this story was a perfectly good romp, and I fully intend to listen to the next in the series, "The Fourth Bear".

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3 people found this helpful