The Shroud of the Thwacker - Chris Elliott

I had hopes this would be a Hitchhiker's Guide / The Eyre Affair sort of send up of Caleb Carr historical crime fiction, but it actually had the unexpected effect of making me realize how good Jasper Fforde's books really are.  Because even if they now have no discernable plot, the jokes are always funny.  While I like the idea - Caleb Carr's The Alienist is a terrific basis for a send-up - the execution is just way over the top.  The jokes are only funny about half the time, and the humor is just so out there that you can't take the book seriously.  There's no internal logic to it because you can't figure out what the rules are.  yes it's the nineteenth century, but with later events continually being included, to the point that you don't have any frame of reference to be able to fit any sort of suspense into.  Now if the point is a nonstop set of gags, say Monty Python style, that's fine, but the jokes have to be funny, and often these aren't.  It reminds me of something a reviewer once said about some Stephen King book - that the characters don't act consistently with their setting - people fighting with swords can't pull out a gun when it suits them - and that was sort of the problem here.  not a really bad book, and I did laugh out loud a number of times, but still, a disappointment.