United States Reviews - Orlando Sentinel (Florida) TN2

Oh, to be lost in the pages of a good book. Literally. To have curious conversations with the Cheshire Cat. To actually smell the mustiness of Miss Havisham's house. To visit the Dashwoods at Norland Park. In other words, to be a Jurisfiction Prose Operative, a literary detective. To be Thursday Next.

You'll remember Thursday Next from last year's The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde's genre-bending tale set in an alternate-world Britain, where literature is taken so seriously that the Shakespeare lobby has political influence and authors inspire the excitement of boy bands. In The Eyre Affair -- think Harry Potter for English majors -- Thursday rescued Jane Eyre from a kidnapper, giving Bronte's book a happy ending in the process.

You thought it always had a happy ending? Think again, or better yet, read Fforde's first tale so you'll be prepared for his entertainingly surreal second, Lost in a Good Book (Viking, $24.95, 399 pages).

Perhaps even more clever than its predecessor, the new story offers a plot stuffed with enough coincidences and characters to make Dickens proud. And that's as it should be, seeing as how Great Expectations' Miss Havisham, in her tattered wedding dress, plays a vital role, agreeing to accept Thursday as her apprentice in the art of book-jumping.

"You'll be fine," the Cheshire Cat tells Thursday, "just don't mention the wedding."

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Thursday needs to be able to enter the pages of a book for a very good reason. The corrupt Goliath Corporation, which basically runs Britain, wants back a villain Thursday imprisoned in Poe's "The Raven." To ensure Thursday's cooperation, Goliath "eradicates" Thursday's new husband, Landon, going back in time and making sure he never survived a childhood accident. If Thursday ever wants to see Landon again outside her dreams, she'll have to find her way into Poe's poem. This wouldn't be so much of a problem except that the Prose Portal, the one powered by bookworms and invented by Thursday's uncle Mycroft, has been destroyed. Thursday must discover another way to literally enter a text. Enter Jurisfiction, another literary-law-enforcement group. Thursday's already part of SpecOps 27, which investigates book-related incidents, such as the sudden appearance of Cardenio, an apparently authentic work by Shakespeare.

But Jurisfiction's agents -- both real and fictional characters -- operate inside literary works, going after illegal Pagerunners (Feste has escaped from Twelfth Night), apparent interlopers (who is this Mycroft fellow who claims to be Sherlock Holmes' brother?) and the censorious Bowdlerizers (several of the more vulgar Canterbury Tales have vanished).

Jurisfiction's headquarters are a vast library presided over by the Cheshire Cat -- "They moved the county boundaries, so technically speaking I'm now the Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat." And while being a Jurisfiction agent sounds wonderfully intriguing, it can be quite dangerous, especially if one goes wandering around in Macabre Gothic fiction. Just ask Ambrose Bierce. Only you can't because he apparently was "Boojummed" -- lost or deleted in the line of duty -- while in a Poe short story.

If all of this sounds complicated, it is, but in a delightfully intelligent and witty way. Still, the book is slow to get started. Before we get to Jurisfiction, there's rather too much spot-and-bother about coincidences stalking Thursday; the problems of Neanderthals, whose engineered scientific return has brought about some unforeseen consequences; and the fact that a giant pink goo is about to end life as we know it unless Thursday and her eradicated, time-traveling father can figure out a way to stop it. Our heroine is also in trouble for having altered the ending of Jane Eyre.

Her legal matters are resolved somewhat when she enters Kafka's The Trial, and the scene that follows is just as loopy and Kafkaesque as one might imagine. There's also a lovely fight with the Red Queen at a book sale, and the chapter with a vampire-killer named Spike will please Buffy fans no end. And there apparently is no end in sight for Thursday Next's adventures. With all the literary world in which to play, and pop culture at his behest, Fforde is having a grand time. For the most part, well-read readers will too. Next up for Thursday Next is next spring's The Well of Lost Plots. Until then, there's the highly recommended Web site thursdaynext.com. Unless, of course, you find your way to Jurisfiction and get lost in a good book.

Nancy Pate