In the second adventure by the bestselling author of the Thursday Next novels, "nursery crime" characters Jack Spratt and Mary Mary take on their most dangerous case so far, as a murderous cookie (The Gingerbread Man) menaces the streets of Reading.

In the second adventure by the bestselling author of the Thursday Next novels, "nursery crime" characters Jack Spratt and Mary Mary take on their most dangerous case so far, as a murderous cookie (The Gingerbread Man) menaces the streets of Reading.

Return to the world of the Nursery Crime Division in this novel from Jasper Fforde, the New York Times bestselling author of the Thursday Next series and The Constant Rabbit*The inimitable Jasper Fforde gives readers another delightful mash-up of detective fiction and nursery rhyme, returning to those mean streets where no character is innocent. The Gingerbreadman--sadist, psychopath, cookie--is on the loose in Reading, but that's not who Detective Jack Spratt and Sergeant Mary Mary are after. Instead, they've been demoted to searching for missing journalist "Goldy" Hatchett. The last witnesses to see her alive were the reclusive Three Bears, and right away Spratt senses something furry--uh, funny *--about their story, starting with the porridge. The Fourth Bear is a delirious new romp from our most irrepressible fabulist.