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    The Fourth Bear: A Nursery Crime
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    The Fourth Bear: A Nursery Crime
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    The Fourth Bear: A Nursery Crime
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Fourth Bear: A Nursery Crime

    Written by Jasper Fforde

    Narrated by Simon Vance

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateAug 3, 2006
    ISBN9781429586580
    Unavailable
    The Fourth Bear: A Nursery Crime
    Author

    Jasper Fforde

    Jasper Fforde is the internationally best-selling author of the Chronicles of Kazam, the Thursday Next mysteries, and the Nursery Crime books. He lives in Wales. www.jasperfforde.com Twitter: @jasperfforde Instagram: @jasperfforde  

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    Reviews for The Fourth Bear

    4/5

    67 ratings67 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Jack Spratt and Mary Mary investigate the disappearance of a young blonde, last seen at a cottage belonging to a nuclear family of bears. Of course the mystery also involves the porridge black market, 50-kilo cucumbers, alien dates and a gingerbread serial killer. Why wouldn't it? Haters of bad puns, beware. Some of these, er, shaggy bear stories last almost the entire length of the book.
    • 3/5
      The Fourth Bear, the second Nursery Crime mystery, opens in Obscurity and begins with a giant cucumber and a tremendous explosion. The action picks up from there. Once again, DCI Jack Spratt and DS Mary Mary are on the case. And, once again, the case is much larger than it initially appears. The Gingerbread Man has escaped from the nuthouse, Goldilocks is brutally murdered, and somehow all these things are deliciously linked to one another.As in the previous book, the joy in this one comes again and again from the little throwaway references...what can I say, they just make me happy. Here's one: Spratt buys a used car from Dorian Gray, a questionable car dealer who cuts him a too-good-to-be-true deal. Can you guess what happens to the portrait that resides in the car's boot? Here's another: Punch and Judy move in next door to the Spratts and save their marriage. Read Jasper Fforde for a light, sly, jokey, and most of all fun experience.
    • 5/5
      Who was it that killed Goldilocks and those other guys that were growing cucumbers? A book where nursery rhymes are sometimes real, and when reality is added there is always a bit of crime. Jack Spratt, Detective and Nursery Rhyme, must figure out who killed Goldy before it's too late. I loved it.
    • 3/5
      Cartoonist Tom Gauld cover! Just for the record
    • 4/5
      Great fun! Not as amazing as the Thursday Next series, but still very enjoyable!! (so much so I read it by flashlight in a blackout!)
    • 3/5
      Though the Humpty case (told in The Big Over Easy) was a great success for the budget-strapped Nursery Crime Division, it wouldn't be the NCD without a crisis on hand. Currently the department is under fire for using a minor as bait to catch a villainous PDR (Person of Dubious Reality) who snips the thumbs off thumbsuckers. In addition, the NCD's head Jack Spratt has been sidelined for mental health reasons after being swallowed—whole—by a wolf impersonating a grandmother in bed. Add to this a string of unexplained explosions involving cucumber growers, the escape of the notorious murderer the Gingerbreadman, and new next-door neighbors Punch and Judy, and you have a The Fourth Bear, Jasper Fforde's latest installment in the Jack Spratt Investigates series. In typical Ffordian style, The Fourth Bear features a bewildering number of random characters and happenings, including: Goldilocks (who is a reporter for The Toad), the Three Bears, the highly competitive, cutthroat world of cucumber growing, the psycho killer Gingerbreadman, unlikely marriage counselors Punch and Judy, SommeWorld (a theme park based on WWII), and last but not least, Jack's coming-to-grips with his own status as a PDR. Not to mention Madeleine's. This story sees Ashley the Rambosian alien come into his own, as he finally plucks up courage to ask Mary out for a date (with surprising results). Oh, and he also helps save Reading in a heroic act of self-sacrifice. I'm glad we don't lose him altogether for future books. Once again, I could have done without the crudeness scattered here and there throughout the book. It doesn't add much, as far as I can see. I don't recommend the audiobook version read by Simon Vance; though I generally like Vance's narration, he made Jack sound so pompous that I turned it off and read the print version instead to keep my mental images intact. Though this story overall is a bit weaker than the first book, I like how Fforde continues to explore and experiment in his literary world. It's fun to see him push against (but never quite break) the fourth wall, with comments like "Jack was immediately convinced by so-and-so's brilliant reasoning, as you should be," and "it's full of holes!" (referring to cucumbers, but with a joke about the plot). Fun stuff, and I'll continue reading the series. Anyone know when the next one comes out?
    • 5/5
      DI Jack Spratt (yes, that Jack Spratt) of the Nursery Crime division investigates several mysteries inlcuding one involving the death of Goldilocks and the escape of The Gingerbread Man.Fforde does an amazing job telling a story that is part Science Fiction, part fantasy but all whilst following a police procedural mystery format. The plot is amazing and never anything I could have forseen while the characters are unbelievably three dimensional despite being well known nursery characters.
    • 4/5
      I read The Big Over Easy a number of years ago, and liked it well enough to pick up its sequel, this book, The Fourth Bear, immediately upon its release, but I didn't quite like the first well enough to read the second and it has thus sat on my shelves for years collecting dust. In the meantime, I've read a number of other Jasper Fforde novels (three in the Thursday Next series which I liked immensely and Shades of Grey which I like not quite as much) and have developed quite an appreciation for the man. So when this one was recommended to me—nicely fitting into my need for something light and airy after reading a trilogy Margaret Atwood novels—I figured it would serve my "palate cleansing" needs nicely. Quite right.If you're looking for serious fiction, this isn't it. Nor is any of Fforde's books, so I can steer you away from that entire section of the bookstore if that's the case. He is, first and foremost, fun. This book is an excellent example. He doesn't take himself too seriously.Here's an example of what I'm talking about (and only very minor spoilers to follow). After sprinkling a few odd references to "PC Philippa Piper" in the first 317 pages of text ("odd" because she has absolutely nothing to do with any of the narrative, plot or our main characters at all), mostly dealing with her being "the most attractive officer at Reading Central" with ample speculation about her single status and who she might choose to date next, Fforde delivers this exchange:"Did you know that Pippa has a bun in the oven?""You're kidding!""No, she was talking to her mother all about it. And what's more," continued Ashley, "the father is Peck—you know, in uniform with the pockmarked face and the twin over in Palmer Park?""What's going on?" asked Mary."Pippa's pregnant by Peck.""Pippa Piper picked Peck over Pickle or Pepper?" exclaimed Mary incredulously."Which of the Peck pair did Pippa Piper pick?""Peter 'pockmarked' Peck of Palmer Park. He was the Peck that Pippa Piper picked.""No, no," returned Mary, "you've got it all wrong. Paul Peck is the Palmer Park Peck; Peter Peck is the pockmarked Peck from Pembroke Park. Pillocks. I'd placed a pound on Pippa Piper picking PC Percy Proctor from Pocklington."But what I really love about this book is the post-modern, metafictional elements, evidenced here in the very next lines in the book following the above:There was a pause."It seems a very laborious setup for a pretty lame joke, doesn't it?" mused Jack."Yes," agreed Mary, shaking her head sadly. "I really don’t know how he gets away with it."Now, on TV or in the movies, that would be a fourth-wall breaking aside to the audience, a little wink and a nod, but in a novel, the "he" referred to is Fforde himself. He litters the novel with self-referential (metafictions) elements like that, from the characters openly discussing common plot devices to this line near the end where Jack (our protagonist) tries to jump to conclusions and reveal a big plot twist, not once but twice, both incorrectly, in quick succession, when another character steps in and says:"Jack, calm down. I think you're suffering a temporary excess of resolutions."Post-modernism was never so much fun. And while I doubt The Fourth Bear is going to make it onto any graduate level literature syllabi, it's a joy to read for anyone interested in various metafictional tricks an author might employ to allow a reader to slip in and out of the frame of the novel.(And before I forget, it's actually a very clever mystery novel. That's been discussed at length in other reviews, so I'll skip it here, but Fforde really put a lot of thought into it. The fact that the entire plot grows from the "porridge temperature differential" in the original Goldilocks tale is genius.)
    • 2/5
      I don't like this series as much as Thursday Next--the puns seem cheesier and the rewards less dramatic.
    • 5/5
      The Gingerbread Man may be my favorite villian ever -- this book merits four stars if only for the scene where he toys with the psychiatrists in the mental hospital. The love story is absolutely awesome as well.
    • 4/5
      It is always funny to see how Mr. Fforde translates nursery rhymes into modern storylines - I especially liked the end of the Gingerbread Man! The pleasure in this book is just watching the silliness and sarcasm unroll.
    • 5/5
      A perfect little piece of playful absurdity. The audiobook is highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      Jack Spratt and Mary Mary investigate the disappearance of a young blonde, last seen at a cottage belonging to a nuclear family of bears. Of course the mystery also involves the porridge black market, 50-kilo cucumbers, alien dates and a gingerbread serial killer. Why wouldn't it? Haters of bad puns, beware. Some of these, er, shaggy bear stories last almost the entire length of the book.
    • 4/5
      I think I liked The Fourth Bear more than I liked The Big Over Easy. I am very used to Jasper Fforde's style, tricks and puns, but this book had some sections I found truly brilliant -- and read at length to my flatmate. This one seems even more meta-fictional than the others: more so than The Big Over Easy, anyway. It's been a while since I read the Thursday Next books.

      One thing I felt really sad about was Ashley losing his memory of his date with Mary. I actually really wanted them to get together. Ashley was a really sweet character -- quirky and sometimes used just to get a joke in, sure, but that goes for every character in Jasper Fforde's books so far.

      One of the things I don't know how I feel about, with Jasper Fforde's stuff, is that -- certainly with the Nursery Crimes books, anyway -- I can't ever figure out how it's going to end, or how it's going to get there. It's not that fun reading something entirely predictable, sure, but sometimes I wish I had just a bit more of a clue. Mind, everything does tie up in a neat little bow at the end, with stuff from the beginning (or middle) tied back neatly into the main story. It's unpredictable, but maybe somebody paying more attention, or someone a bit quicker, might be able to predict it somewhat. Also, part of it might be getting references -- I wouldn't have understood the Dorian Gray subplot much if I didn't know the story of Dorian Gray.
    • 3/5
      A fun, light read - not sure the premise really holds up under close scrutiny (the premise of nursery rhyme characters existing in the real world, not the mystery itself), but a fun read, nevertheless. Especially loved how the car subplot wound up being woven into the main storyline.
    • 4/5
      Oh, goodness, I'm not even sure where to start. The Gingerbread Man is a psychotic killer who escapes from jail. Goldilocks is found dead in a partly-finished WWI theme park. Sinister events plague the cutthroat world of competitive cucumber-growing. Bears deal in illicit porridge paraphernalia. Punch and Judy are marriage counselors. The whole thing is absolutely ridiculous, but Detective Jack Spratt is on the case. I got quite a few chuckles out of this one, but most of the really good laughs were from the excerpts from The Barkshire Bumper Book of Records at the beginning of each chapter. If you're familiar with nursery rhymes and enjoy absurd humor, you'll probably enjoy this one. I don't know how well it stands on its own, but as the sequel to The Big Over Easy it's quite entertaining. Too bad Fforde hasn't written any more in this series.
    • 4/5
      Summary: Detective Jack Spratt and the rest of the Nursery Crimes division have got big problems: the psychotic Gingerbread man has escaped from prison, and is loose on a murderous spree in Reading. Or rather, they would have big problems, if they hadn't been bumped off the case by the higher-ups, and reassigned to searching for the missing journalist Goldilocks, last known to have been investigating a competitive cucumber grower who died in a freak explosion. The three bears were the last ones to see her alive, and something about their story just doesn't add up in Jack's reckoning... but how can he explain his theories to his superiors without losing his job and being sent to the loony bin to boot?Review: This book was pretty much solid Fforde - wall-to-wall literary allusions and zany wackiness that somehow all fits together right at the end. Unfortunately, I picked this one up when I wasn't really in the mood for enforced wackiness, so although I can't really find any fault with the novel itself, I wound up finding it more tiresome than fun. Some of the jokes worked for me, but some felt like they were trying too hard, and when you even have your characters point out that the jokes are trying too hard, that little puff of metafictional cleverness just felt like really trying too hard.I didn't solve the mystery on my own, but all of the pieces somehow (miraculously) did fit together and make their own kind of sense by the end. But my favorite parts of the books were neither the central story elements nor the throwaway gags, but rather the secondary plots and long-running threads. I was particularly charmed by Mary Mary's and Ashley (the alien)'s relationship, and I thought Jack's new magical self-healing car, sold to him by one strange Mr. Dorian Gray, was clever without being blaringly zany, and was used very effectively.So: can't really fault it for anything, but also didn't really love it... although in another time and another mood, I might have had a very different reaction. 3.5 out of 5 stars.Recommendation: If you like metafiction and are in the mood for a bunch of terrible puns and general silliness wrapped around a detective story, The Fourth Bear should fit the bill quite nicely. It's technically the second book in the Nursery Crimes series, but could easily stand alone.
    • 4/5
      My first encounter with Mr. Fforde's work didn't set my reading buds tingling but as I already had the sequel to [The Big Over Easy] I thought I'd give it another go as I do like the concept idea of poking fun at the crime/mystery genre. The Nursery Crimes series certainly does that with the NCD (Nursery Crimes Division) of the Reading police investigating various cases which include competitive cucumber growing, unlicensed porridge deals amongst the bear population & the disappearance of Goldilocks. The one case that wasn't given to the department though was the escape of the notorious Gingerbread Man. Seven foot of psychotic, mass-murdering biscuit (or should that be cake) is once again loose on the streets and despite being one of the officers to catch him last time, Jack Spratt can't officially get involved and has been put on sick leave pending a psych evaluation after events in his last case didn't exactly go that well. Red Riding Hood and her grandmother didn't appear to enjoy being eaten by the big bad wolf apparently.The humour in the book seemed to gel with me more this time around but I think it was also that the narrative flowed better that made this one more enjoyable than the last. The characters were fleshed out some more and the off-the-job asides were well interjected. Punch and Judy as new neighbours anyone? Or perhaps having qualms about going on a date with an alien. Problems that Jack and Mary Mary have to deal with in their respective home lives. A third book is due in about 2014 and I now feel much happier about continuing with this series and will pick that one up when it's released.
    • 3/5
      I read this without reading the first in the series. It's an imaginative context with plenty of wit and puns ('the right to arm bears' being a particular favourite of mine) and some wonderfully original takes on nursery rhyme characters, but somehow it lacks a certain amount of bite. Using this book as a representative sample, the Nursery Crimes Division seems to occupy a similar area in its genre to, say, Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers series, but for me it does not deliver the same page-turner qualities. The gags keep on coming, but in a sort of scattergun fashion: some hit the mark but plenty miss the target or go completely astray. There are some nice moments, some quaint descriptions, and some suitably wild sequences of events. In the end, though, I found it to be a little less than satisfying. Maybe it just tries to do and be too much.
    • 4/5
      I love this series! Fforde is funny and clever nad keeps you guessing. Jack Spratt and Mary Mary work in the Nursery Crimes Division of the police department. They solved the case of who murdered Humpty Dumpty in The Big Over Easy and they are back with more in this mystery.
    • 4/5
      This isn't Fford's latest, it was published in 2006, but it's my favorite of the ones I've read. This is another fairy tale squeezed almost out of recognition by subplots and outrageous liberties taken with the plot and characters. In it, Detectives Jack Spratt and Mary Mary investigate suspicious occurrences that include the mysterious deaths of heavy-weight cucumber growers, Goldilocks' disappearance and subsequent death and Somme World (experience WWI!)My favorite scene occurred when Mary went on a date with Detective Ashley, an alien with a skin like a jellyfish. On the date, they go to Ashley's parents house for dinner. Anyone who hopes to write humor should get this scene and use it as the gold standard. Laugh-out-loud lines in the scene:Ashley's Mom, Abigail, at the dinner table: "Mary, pass the toothpaste."Mary picked up what she thought was the condiment basket and passed it up the table.Abigail squeezed some Colgate on her chips.Overall, a delightful read.
    • 1/5
      Definitely not my sort of humour.I love audiobooks and will often listen to different genres from my usual, just because I have the opportunity to have them narrated. This was the case with The Fourth Bear and I approached it enthusiastically. Unfortunately, I found the humour extreemly irritating and couldn't even complete the first CD of my unabridged version. Although I may sometimes listen to novels in an audiobook that I would normally have abandoned in hard copy (Wolf hall for ex), this completely defeated me. Punns and wordplay, nursery characters solving crimes committed by other nursery charcters, I really couldn't take any more.So, I'm sorry Mr Fforde, I guess your books are not for everyone and the book I currently have on my shelf will be finding a more receptive home.
    • 3/5
      After The Big Over Easy, this is another tale about DCI Jack Pratt and DS Mary Mary of the Reading Police Nursery Crime Division. Fforde has created a wonderfully real imaginary world where bears and other nursery rhyme figures try to live normal lives in the city of Reading. His books are an intellectual joy to read, with lots of clever jokes and wordplay - but emotionally, they leave me indifferent, and that's what keeps this book in the 3 star category for me. But I stand in awe of Jasper Fforde's imagination and flair.
    • 4/5
      I have a whimsical streak, which is why I suppose I like Fforde's stories so much. This is another in his unmistakable style, this time featuring Detective Chief Inspector Jack Spratt of the Nursery Crime Division. Spratt investigates crimes involving nursery rhymes, and is most famous, when the book opens, for his work on the Humpty Dumpty case, although a recent failure with respect to Little Red Riding Hood has proved to be a career setback. If you like Fforde's flair for writing, you will enjoy this work as well. If not, then you may find it a bit too cheeky.
    • 1/5
      I don't why, I just hated this. I always try to finish books, even ones I'm not particularly enjoying, but this one I couldn't bring myself to finish.
    • 3/5
      This is a weird book - fairly standard detective fiction, but the main characters are from nursery rhymes - Goldilocks and three bears, etc. But it works. The writing is pacey, suiting the genre. There are wonderful word plays and literary allusions - the bears live in the 'Bob Southey"complex - after the writer of the original Goldilocks story. A lot of fun,. and I'll read more. Read January 2010.
    • 5/5
      Fforde's storytelling is much like DCI Spratt in this book: "more or less sane" while brilliant the entire time. Who else could tie together champion cucumbers, a 7 foot tall maniacal Gingerbread Man, a car dealer making deals with Mephistopheles, and anthropomorphic bears into novel that begs to be read in as few sittings as possible?
    • 3/5
      I generally love Jasper Fforde's books but The Fourth Bear fell a little flat for me. But I've found that Fforde's Nursery Crime Division books not to be as entertaining as the Thursday Next books.
    • 4/5
      Another fun romp through Nurseryland
    • 4/5
      In a similar fashion to Fforde's Thursday Next series, the second book in the Nursery Crime series is an improvement over the first. Fforde seems to be writing near the limit of daftness, daring the break narrative walls while sparing no expense setting up jokes and puns over several chapters. The most surprising part of my reading experience was that I grokked the key pseudo-science before it was revealed in the plot, despite being overly ridiculous and nonsensical. Maybe I too, am a Person of Dubious Reality.