One of Our Thursdays in Missings

Thursday Next makes nothing more than a cameo appearance in this most recent book in the Thursday Next series. Instead her "written self" is the protagonist. She finds herself mysteriously engaged in a quest to resolve a cab crash, find the "real" Thursday and prevent a book world war. The story takes places almost entirely in the book world, with only a brief sojourn in to the "real" world. (Hmm, I guess this had to be done to keep the plot from getting too far off.)

Alas, the story devolves to a fairly standard mystery, with only a slightly bizarre setting (the book world) and a bit of self-awareness to set it apart. It lacks some of craziness of the early books in the series and seems to be an attempt at moving the series to a more serious branch. It is not bad, but not nearly as original as the earlier books. Perhaps he has just ran out of originality and just stuck with a slight twist on the existing world.