ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING

One Of Our Thursdays Is Missing is the sixth novel in the popular Thursday Next series by Welsh author, Jasper Fforde. Not long after the Remake of BookWorld, it seems that Real World Thursday Next is missing. Written Thursday (Thursday 1-4 from First Among Sequels, the huggy one) has been trying to play Thursday with dignity, but the series is virtually unread, so the presence of an understudy allows her to investigate with the help of Sprocket, a clockwork butler she has acquired (everyone needs a butler). This instalment features Men in Plaid as enforcers, a Triumph Bonneville, inter-genre cabs, a book sabotaged by rhetorical worms, a geologist thrown from a window, and a car chase. Written Thursday travels to the Real World, meets the real Landen, is kidnapped by a Wiltshire Stiltonista, tries to interpret obscure clues to Thursday’s whereabouts, travels up the Metaphoric River, meets some Loser Literary Siblings (The Mediocre Gatsby, Brian Heep, Tracy Capulet, Sharon Eyre etc) and is finally offered a job with Jurisfiction. Concepts like character assassins, a mime field, the Large Metaphor Collider and the intricacies of a character’s backstory are also a source of entertainment. Fforde still delights with some absurd names like Keitel Black, Red Herring and D.J. Growling, and each chapter is prefaced by a pertinent passage from Bradshaw’s BookWord Companion, which, we note, runs to at least fifteen editions, confirming that Colonel Bradshaw’s eventual retirement must have been profitable. As always, Fforde is incredibly clever: this is a brilliant read.