The inventive, exuberant, and totally original literary fun that began with "The Eyre Affair" continues with Jasper Ffordeas magnificent second adventure starring the resourceful, fearless literary sleuth Thursday Next. When Landen, the love of her life, is eradicated by the corrupt multinational Goliath Corporation, Thursday must moonlight as a Prose Resource Operative of Jurisfictionathe police force inside books. She is apprenticed to the man-hating Miss Havisham from Dickensas "Great Expectations," who grudgingly shows Thursday the ropes. And she gains just enough skill to get herself in a real mess entering the pages of Poeas aThe Raven.a What she really wants is to get Landen back. But this latest mission is not without further complications. Along with jumping into the works of Kafka and Austen, and even Beatrix Potteras "The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies," Thursday finds herself the target of a series of potentially lethal coincidences, the authenticator of a newly discovered play by the Bard himself, and the only one who can prevent an unidentifiable pink sludge from engulfing all life on Earth.