Fforde's first novel, The Eyre Affair, follows literary detective Thursday Next as she goes in search of the person responsible for kidnapping the heroine of Jane Eyre. Lost in a Good Book picks up where he left off. In the parallel universe where Wales is a socialist republic, Thursday is back on the trail of criminals intent on reinventing history and messing with the literary greats. "Jack Schitt had planned to prolong and escalate the Crimean War. We had tricked him into a copy of Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven', a place in which I hoped he could do no harm." Fforde tinkers with Shakespeare's plays, Miss Havisham's facial tics, and Josef K's rage. As for Thursday Next, her determined sleuth work doesn't go unnoticed. "Truly competent literary detectives are as rare as truthful men," declares Miss Havisham, before debating whether or not to invite Sherlock Holmes to join the gang. Rather like the morning after a particularly delirious dream.
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