We first meet Jack, a young man who is tired of the dust and simpletons of the rural life and heads to the big city to make his fortune. He heads off to Toy City, the New York City of fairy tale land. Sadly the small town boy is no match for the nitty gritty city and just when he thinks he should return home, he runs into Eddie Bear. Eddie is a walking, talking teddy bear, the rough-n-tumble sidekick of one of Toy City's most famous detective. Who has mysteriously gone missing. The two unlikely comrades join forces to figure out what happened to Bill Winkie, Private Eye. Eddie becomes Jack's unofficial guide to all things Toy City, exposing the sheltered lad to all the dirty, sexy, druggy, and deviant characters that were kept far from the fairy tales, even the original Grimm versions.
Along the way the two get caught up in a twisted trail of grisly murders of famous nursery rhyme celebrities, such the likes of Humpty Dumpty and even Mother Goose herself (it'll make you look at Thanksgiving turkey in a different light). The clues of Bill's disappearance seem to line up with the sudden celebrity deaths, which drives Eddie and Jack to find the truth even more fervently. But the nursery rhyme serial killings aren't just gruesome, they are also punctuated by a partially eaten chocolate bunnies left as calling cards. Whether an arm, ear, or other chocolaty body parts are missing, the sugary treats become deliciously twisted calling cards. Soon all Toy City is crippled by this serial killer and it is up to Eddie and Jack to figure out the clues by diving deeper into the seedy underbelly of the city, turning over the darkest rock and uncovering whatever secrets lie there.
This is certainly not your mother's, or even your children's nursery rhymes. If you thought that Shrek because it spun these classic stories on their ear, then Rankin spins these tales around and knocks them flat on their collective ass. Rankin's tale starts off a little slow and takes a little getting used to how he paces the flow, but I personally think it's because he's British and they don't use this " type of quotations marks but only the singles ' for when people talk. It confused me, but I quickly got over it.
I rate this book on my scale of 1 (literary hari kari) to 10 (literary orgasmic bliss) at a comfortable 6. I highly recommend this for those who like their crime novels with the flare of the salacious with a noir chaser. It's certainly a different take on "contemporary fairy tales" which I think the more mature reader will appreciate.
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