Nursery Crimes

Enter 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 Jasper Fforde's bestselling Thursday Next series has delighted readers of every genre with its literary derring-do and brilliant flights of fancy. In The Big Over Easy, Fforde takes a break from classic literature and tumbles into the seedy underbelly of nursery crime. Meet Inspector Jack Spratt, family man and head of the Nursery Crime Division. He's investigating the murder of ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Dumpty, found shattered to death beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. Yes, the big egg is down, and all those brittle pieces sitting in the morgue point to foul play. "[Forde] knows a thing or two about leaping into new worlds. . . . It's hard not to see what all the enthusiasm is about." -Janet Maslin, The New York Times "A wonderfully readable riot." -The Wall Street Journal

For Thanksgiving Day, the fourteen pigs in the Jambonneau family trim their trees to look like turkeys, but wake up one morning to find they have all been stolen.

Nursery Crimes: Sexual Abuse in Day Care seeks to determine whether day care is a high risk environment. Perpetrators are described and various strategies evaluated for screening them from access to children. The process of detection and disclosure and the professional response to cases of abuse are examined carefully for ideas about how to promote better and earlier reporting. The relative effectiveness of different approaches and types of actions taken by licensing and law enforcement agencies are evaluated. To help work with the victims in the aftermath, the impact on both the children and the community is examined. Policy implications and specific recommendations are included in each section.

The Gingerbreadman: Psychopath, sadist, genius, convicted murderer and biscuit is loose in the streets of Reading. It isn't Jack Spratt's case. He and Mary Mary have been reassigned due to falling levels of nursery crime, and The NCD is once more in jeopardy. That is, until a chance encounter during the Armitage Shanks literary awards at the oddly familiar Deja-Vu Club lead Jack and Mary on the hunt for missing journalist Henrietta 'Goldilocks' Hatchett, star reporter for The Daily Toad. She had been about to break a story involving unexplained explosions in Herefordshire, Pasadena and the Nullabor Plain; 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. How could the bear's porridge be at such disparate temperatures when they were poured at the same time? Was Goldy's death in the nearby 1st World War themepark of Sommeworld a freak accident? And is it merely chance that the Gingerbreadman pops up at awkward moments? But there's more. What does a missing scientist with a terrifying discovery in subatomic physics, a secret weapon of devastating power, a reclusive industrialist known only as the Quangle Wangle and Colonel Danvers of the National Security all have in common?

This clever take on classic nursery rhymes revises the stories we all know into fun, interactive, "who done it" style puzzles for each page.

“Smart sleuthing…the way [Juliet] maintains her sense of humor while juggling detective chores and baby duty is awesome.”—The New York Times A public defender turned Stay-at-home mom, Juliet Applebaum is bored with playdates and trips to the park—so near the end of her second pregnancy, she gets off the mommy track to track down a murderer…. Juliet isn’t too surprised when her feisty, tantrum-throwing two-year-old daughter doesn’t get into Hollywood’s premier preschool—but she’s shocked and suspicious when the school’s principal is killed in a hit-and-run accident. Against the advice of her screenwriter husband, and with her rambunctious toddler in tow, Juliet heads to the local playground to dig up some dirt on a disgruntled studio executive whose daughter wasn’t offered a place in the school. But she has some surprising new suspects to consider when her investigation takes her into a seedy on-line newsgroup—and the most dangerous parts of the human heart…. “[Juliet is] a lot like Elizabeth Peters’s warm and humorous Amelia Peabody—a brassy, funny, quick-witted protagonist.”—The Houston Chronicle

After James Follett, a detective working in Scotland Yard, is called out to Guildford to investigate a hotel shooting, he feels uneasy. When London Bridge collapses the same day, he turns to the survivor of the hotel shooting for answers, but the young girl's attacker is determined to keep her silent.