Chapter 40. - Second First Person

Chapter 41. - Death Becomes Her

Chapter 42. - Explanations

Chapter 43. - Recovery

Chapter 44. - Final Curtain

Credits

Author’s Note

This book has been bundled with Special Features, including
The Making of documentary, deleted scenes from all four books,
outtakes and much more.

Dramatis Personae

Thursday Next: Ex-operative from Swindon’s Literary Detective office of SpecOps-27 and currently head of Jurisfiction, the policing agency that operates within fiction to safeguard the stability of the written word.

Friday Next: Thursday’s son, age two.

Granny Next: Resident of Goliath Twilight Homes, Swindon. Age 110 and cannot die until she has read the ten most boring classics.

Wednesday Next: Thursday’s mother. Resides in Swindon.

Landen Parke-Laine: Thursday’s husband, who hasn’t existed since he was eradicated in 1947 by the Goliath Corporation, eager to blackmail Miss Next.

Mycroft Next: Inventor uncle of Thursday and last heard of living in peaceful retirement within the backstory of the Sherlock Holmes series. Designer of Prose Portal and Sarcasm Early-Warning Device, amongst many other things. Husband to Polly.

Colonel Next: A time-traveling knight errant, he was eradicated by the ChronoGuard, a sort of temporal policing agency. Despite this, he is still about and meets Thursday from time to time.

Cat formerly known as Cheshire: The ex-Wonderland überlibrarian at the Great Library and Jurisfiction agent.

Pickwick: A pet dodo of very little brain.

Bowden Cable: Colleague of Thursday’s at the Swindon Literary Detectives.

Victor Analogy: Head of Swindon Literary Detectives.

Braxton Hicks: Overall commander of the Swindon Special Operations Network.

Daphne Farquitt: Romance writer whose talent is inversely proportional to her sales.

The Goliath Corporation: Vast, unscrupulous multinational corporation keen on spiritual and global domination.

Commander Trafford Bradshaw: Popular hero in 1920s ripping adventure stories for boys, now out of print, and notable Jurisfiction agent.

Melanie Bradshaw (Mrs.): A gorilla, married to Commander Bradshaw.

Mrs. Tiggy-winkle, Emperor Zhark, the Red Queen, Falstaff, Vernham Deane: All Jurisfiction operatives, highly trained.

Yorrick Kaine: Whig politician and publishing media tycoon. Also right-wing Chancellor of England, soon to be made dictator. Fictional, and sworn enemy of Thursday Next.

President George Formby: Octogenarian President of England and deeply opposed to Yorrick Kaine and all that he stands for.

Wales: A Socialist Republic.

Lady Emma Hamilton: Consort of Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson and lush. Upset when her husband inexplicably died at the beginning of the Battle of Trafalgar. Lives in Mrs. Next’s spare room.

Hamlet: A Danish prince with a propensity for prevarication.

SpecOps: Short for Special Operations, the governmental departments that deal with anything too rigorous for the ordinary police to handle. Everything from time travel to good taste.

Bartholomew Stiggins: Commonly known as “Stig.” Neanderthal reengineered from extinction, he heads SpecOps-13 (Swindon), the policing agency responsible for reengineered species such as mammoths, dodos, saber-toothed tigers and chimeras.

Chimera: Any unlicensed “nonevolved life-form” created by a hobby genetic sequencer. Illegal and destroyed without mercy.