In The Eyre Affair, first-time novelist Jasper Fforde introduces us to Spec Ops Literatec Thursday Next, and a world both dreamlike and hard-boiled. The year is 1985, but the time is something else entirely. This is a possible past, one in which national borders have been redrawn, time travel and cloning are possible, and English literature is the stuff of near-theological disputes

As a Spec Ops, Ms. Next ­ equal parts Popeye Doyle and Bridget Jones ­ is a member of a secret police force, albeit a desk-bound specialist in forgeries. So when Archeron Hades, a former mentor, steals the original manuscript of Jane Eyre and a device that allows readers to bodily enter the worlds of their favorite texts, the straits are dire indeed. Abducting Jane from the manuscript (and thus all copies of the novel), Hades ­ who, in our world would be a simple vandal ­ joins the league of arch-criminals. Will he get his king's ransom, or will Thursday Next thwart him?

Lieratec Next's attack on Hades' dastardly plan takes many twists and turns. Along the way, she must take up temporary residence at Thornfield Hall, conquer a hydra-headed beast of office politics, reconcile with a father who has come unstuck in time (and, incidentally, may be the true author of Shakespeare's works) and resolve her own long-standing romantic entanglements.

Mr. Fforde's prose is largely functional. but it does have unusual momentum, and, sometimes, even gangly grace. The author falters occasionally with a groan-worthy pun and tin-ear dialogue, but he seems to intimately know the world he has created. Although it combines elements from a number of genres and previous works of speculative fiction, The Eyre Affair's alternative Earth feels right. It is well-constructed, imaginative, and "daft" to just the right degree: The only serious miscue involves some supernatural hanky-panky (vampires, werewolves, etc.).

Yet this isn't science fiction but fantasy with science-fiction trappings, or, more accurately, a work that falls into another tradition, that of English whimsy. This literary genre is a long and distinguished one, encompassing as it does writers from Edmund Spenser to Douglas Adams, and characters as different as the Mad Hatter, and, most lucratively, Harry Potter. Often confectionary and decorative in language, these works are just as often tough and acid in their underlying meanings. The Eyre Affair does, indeed, have darkness playing around its edges, notably the shadow of a terribly protracted war between Britain and Russia in the Crimea, the Orwellian Goliath Corporation, and the Balkanization of the United Kingdom (Wales is now a neighboring terrorist state).

Still, Mr. Fforde's chief aims are to be clever and to delight his readers. Unfortunately, the novel's climax makes too tidy a package, and, as Thursday's heroics result in a literal rewriting of Jane Eyre, we have two endings with which to contend. The novel's resolution sets up the plot machinery for Mr. Fforde's sequel, but it leaves Thursday, a character who is thoughtfuland someone we care about, too little to worry about. And Thursday Next is a champion worrier.

Though not consistently diverting, The Eyre Affair will resonate with anyone who has ever closed a book or left a movie theater and sighed wistfully, "Why can't life be like that?"

Free-lance writer Joe Milazzo lives in Dallas.