A wonderful book, the first in what appears to be a new series about literary detective (LiteraTec) Thursday Next. Thursday inhabits an alternate 1985, a world where airplanes have never replaced dirigibles; where special police forces exist for vampire hunting, time travel, and art crime and literary detection. The latter are necessary because, not only are there door-to-door Baconians who try to get you to subscribe to their theory that Francis Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare, and because surrealists and impressionists function as gangs, complete with murderous gang wars, but because Thursday's uncle has invented a machine that allows people to enter -- and characters to leave -- books. When a madman kidnaps Jane Eyre, it's Thursday to the rescue.

This is a library edition, so I'll be returning it there rather than keeping or releasing.