The fourth installment in Jasper Fforde's New York Times bestselling series follows literary detective Thursday Next on another adventure in her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England-from the author of The Constant Rabbit The popularity of Jasper Fforde's one-of-a-kind series of genre-bending blend of crime fiction, fantasy, and top-drawer literary entertainment builds with each new book. Now in the fourth installment, the resourceful literary detective Thursday Next returns to Swindon from the BookWorld accompanied by her son Friday and none other than the dithering Hamlet. But returning to SpecOps is no snap-as outlaw fictioner Yorrick Kaine plots for absolute power, the return of Swindon's patron saint foretells doom, and, if that isn't bad enough, The Merry Wives of Windsor is becoming entangled with Hamlet. Can Thursday find a Shakespeare clone to stop this hostile takeover? Can she vanquish Kaine and prevent the world from plunging into war? And will she ever find reliable child care? Find out in this totally original, action-packed romp, sure to be another escapist thrill for Jasper Fforde's legions of fans.