In a book club and starting to plan your reads for next year? Check out our 2025 picks.

Excerpt from Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reading Guide |  Reviews |  Readalikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde

Something Rotten

A Thursday Next mystery

by Jasper Fforde
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • First Published:
  • Aug 5, 2004, 384 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jul 2005, 416 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this Book

Print Excerpt


"This is fiction," replied Zhark in all innocence. "Odd things are meant to happen."

"Not to me," I said with finality. "I want to see some sort of semblance of...of reality in my life."

"Reality?" echoed Mrs. Tiggy-winkle. "You mean a place where hedgehogs don't talk or do washing?"

"But who'll run Jurisfiction?" demanded the Emperor. "You were the best we ever had!"

I shook my head, threw up my hands and walked to where the ground was peppered with the A-7 gunman's text. I picked up a D and turned it over in my hands.

"Please reconsider," said Commander Bradshaw, who had followed me. "I think you'll find, old girl, that reality is much overrated."

"Not overrated enough, Bradshaw," I replied with a shrug. "Sometimes the top job isn't the easiest one."

"Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown," murmured Bradshaw, who probably understood me better than most. He and his wife were the best friends I had in the BookWorld; Mrs. Bradshaw and my son were almost inseparable.

"I knew you wouldn't stay for good," continued Bradshaw, lowering his voice so the others didn't hear. "When will you go?"

I shrugged. "Soon as I can. Tomorrow."

I looked around at the destruction that Zhark had wrought upon Death at Double-X Ranch. There would be a lot of clearing up, a mountain of paperwork—and there might be the possibility of disciplinary action if the Council of Genres got wind of what had happened.

"I suppose I should complete the paperwork on this debacle first," I said slowly. "Let's say three days." "You promised to stand in for Joan of Arc while she attended a martyrs' refresher course," added Mrs. Tiggy-winkle, who had tiptoed closer.

I'd forgotten about that. "A week, then. I'll be off in a week."

We all stood in silence, I pondering my return to Swindon and all of them considering the consequences of my departure— except Emperor Zhark, who was probably thinking about invading the planet Thraal, for fun.

"Your mind is made up?" asked Bradshaw. I nodded slowly. There were other reasons for me to return to the real world, more pressing than Zhark's gung ho lunacy. I had a husband who didn't exist and a son who couldn't spend his life cocooned inside books. I had retreated into the old Thursday, the one who preferred the black-and-white certainties of policing fiction to the ambiguous midtone grays of emotion.

"Yes, my mind's made up," I said, smiling. I looked at Bradshaw, the Emperor and Mrs. Tiggy-winkle. For all their faults, I'd enjoyed working with them. It hadn't been all bad. Whilst at Jurisfiction I had seen and done things I wouldn't have believed. I'd watched grammasites in flight over the pleasure domes of Xanadu, felt the strangeness of listeners glittering on the dark stair. I had cantered bareback on unicorns through the leafy forests of Zenobia and played chess with Ozymandias, the King of Kings. I had flown with Biggles on the Western Front, locked cutlasses with Long John Silver and explored the path not taken to walk upon England's mountains green. But despite all these moments of wonder and delight, my heart belonged back home in Swindon and to a man named Landen Parke-Laine. He was my husband, the father of my son; he didn't exist, and I loved him.

Excerpted from Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde.  Copyright Jasper Fforde 2004.  All rights reserved

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    The House of Doors
    by Tan Twan Eng
    Every July, I take on the overly ambitious goal of reading all of the novels chosen as longlist ...
  • Book Jacket: The Puzzle Box
    The Puzzle Box
    by Danielle Trussoni
    During the tumultuous last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, a 17-year-old emperor known as Meiji ...
  • Book Jacket
    Something, Not Nothing
    by Sarah Leavitt
    In 2020, after a lifetime of struggling with increasingly ill health, Sarah Leavitt's partner, ...
  • Book Jacket
    A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    by Raul Palma
    Raul Palma's debut novel A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens introduces Hugo Contreras, who came to the ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

From the moment I picked your book up...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.