FIRST AMONG SEQUELS

Adult Harry Potter fans can find refuge in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series. Fforde brings to life the world inside books. Literary detective Ms. Next continues her work for Jurisfiction, the police force in the Bookworld. While she tries to persuade her slacker teenaged son to go to work for the ChronoGuard, who is responsible for temporal stability, she discovers that someone is turning literary works into reality TV shows and that others want to turn the Bookworld into a tourist trap. Emily Gray returns as narrator a second time, and her matter-of-fact delivery, especially regarding the National Stupidity Surplus, enhances the delightful lunacy of Fforde's tales. One annoying element to the presentation is a longer than usual lapse at the end of each track, which proves distracting. R.E.F. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB/ MAR 08]