Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28695 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Like a mad toymaker's fever dream, Rankin's uproarious book imagines a town where toys and nursery rhymes come to life and pursue human activities: they walk, talk, eat, drink and commit heinous crimes. Thirteen-year-old Jack goes to the City to find his fortune, unaware that the City is in fact Toy City, where legends and fables walk (or stumble, if they've had too much to drink). He meets up with detective teddy bear Eddie, who is investigating the murder of Humpty Dumpty. When Little Boy Blue is offed, it's clear that a serial killer is prowling Toy City, leaving behind the titular chocolate bunnies as his calling card. Rankin doesn't just drop names of familiar characters but gives them riotous back stories: Miss Muffett hosts a daytime TV talk show called "The Tuffet"; Mother Goose (who prefers to be called Madame Goose) runs a brothel; Humpty Dumpty was likely a failed television stuntman named Terry Horsey. Although the story is wickedly clever and the payoff is a great and satisfying surprise, the real delight comes from watching Rankin work his linguistic magic: characters talk in hilariously circular and self-aware dialogue, and puns and wordplay are packed into the prose like sardines in a tin. Although substantially darker and edgier than the Hitchhiker's series, this gem will appeal to Douglas Adams fans, as well as lovers of British humor in general.
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Entertainment Weekly
“Rankin more than lives up to his deliriously inventive title…”

PW Daily for Booksellers
“Although substantially darker and edgier than the Hitchhiker's series, this gem will appeal to Douglas Adams fans…”

Customer Reviews

I have to read everything this author has ever written.

Hilarious and satirical. Loved the small details that are thrown in as metaphors. Excellent language quirks that really teased my brain. This book is as great as.

Not For Everyone, But Worth Giving It A Try
I don't know if I can put this book in the same league as the Discworld and Hitchiker's novels that the author is often compared to, but I found it delightfully hilarious and literally laugh out loud funny. I was traveling quite a bit for work while reading this and found myself not being able to contain myself while reading it. I'm recommended to others and about half couldn't get into it and the other half love it. It is silly, laden with puns and culture references, and the writing reflect that. To give you an idea of what kind of person would like this, some of my favorites are the Discworld series, the Hitchiker's series, The Jane Eyre Affair, Neverwhere, and A Confederacy of Dunces. I also enjoy the Simpsons, Family Guy and classic cartoons, and I am generally a fan of pop culture. Judge for yourself if you think you may like it.

not so sure about this one
So this was the first of Robert Rankins' books I've dared to read. I thought it strange that there were so many of them, so finally decided on this one. I remember thinking, "with so many, could they really be good?" If some of them are good, I must've chosen the wrong one, because this book was not.
After reading ALL of Jasper Fforde's books I was looking for something in the same style, and thought that this would be it. WRONG! Fford's books are actually entertaining and well-written, they are actually fun to read, even laugh-out-loud funny at times. This book was not. Rankins' writing style was... strange, to say the least, it got a bit annoying after a while. If this is how all his books are written...well, let me put it this way, if you're looking for something fun to read, maybe with nursery rhyme characters in it, that's fun and silly: just read the 'Nursery Crimes' books by Fforde, cause this one just doesn't cut it.
But as I always say: to each his own, you never know, you may love it!