Big over easy. Jasper Fforde. 2005.

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 Stuyexant 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. Evidence points to his ex-wife  who has met with an accident down at the Yummy-Time biscuit factory.

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………..