Jasper Fforde — Something Rotten

Hodder & Stoughton 2004 Paperback, 416pp. There is another 1988. Where purgatory is a motorway service station. Where dodos are very much alive, living in your potting shed, and called Alan. And where the future of the universe hangs in the balance of a premier league croquet match. Literary Detective Thursday Next is on a mission. And it's not just a mission to save the planet. It's a lot more complicated than that. First, she has to get her job back following the infamous illegal cheese-smuggling incident. Then there's the small matter of persuading Hamlet to attend his conflict resolution classes, and making sure that President-for-Life George Formby doesn't lose his seat to a self-declared Dictator, the decidedly fictional Yorrick Kaine. Not to mention trying to force the evil Goliath Corporation to un-eradicate her husband, Landen Park-Laine. Will Thursday ever see Landen again? Is shopping the new religion? Who is cloning Shakespeare? Can she prevent Armageddon? And who will babysit her son while she does it? Welcome to the Next Dimension - where fiction is definitely very much stranger than truth. Signed by author; previous owner's nameplate inside; dog-eared; cover creased. (ISBN: 9780340825945). Good.