Lost in a Good Book

If Thursday thought she could avoid the spotlight after her heroic escapades in the pages of Jane Eyre, she was sorely mistaken. The unforgettable literary detective whom Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times calls "part Bridget Jones, part Nancy Drew and part Dirty Harry" had another think coming.

The love of her life has been eradicated by Goliath, everyone's favorite corrupt multinational. To rescue him Thursday must retrieve a supposedly vanquished enemy from the pages of The Raven. But Poe is off-limits to even the most seasoned literary interloper.

Enter a professional: the man-hating Miss Havisham from Dickens's Great Expectations. As her new apprentice, Thursday keeps her motives secret as she learns the ropes of Jurisfiction, where she moonlights as a Prose Resource Operative inside books.

As if jumping into the likes of Kafka, Austen, and Beatrix Potter's Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies weren't enough, Thursday finds herself the target of a series of potentially lethal coincidences, the authenticator of a newly discovered play by the Bard himself, and the only one who can prevent an unidentifiable pink sludge from engulfing all life on Earth.

The inventive, exuberant, and totally original literary fun that began with The Eyre Affair continues with Fforde's magnificent new adventure, the second installment in what is sure to become a classic series of literary fantasy.