Of his books that I have read to date, this is unique in that it's a standalone. I've not read Early Riser yet so I don't know if that is a planned series or not. I do know that he would have some work to do to make a sequel to this one.
Which is a shame because this is such a fantastic idea with a lot of potential.
50 odd years ago there was an event and a number of small animals became human sized and sentient. There were dozens of rabbits in the original event, and now there are 1.2 million living in the UK.
When Constance moves into the small village of Much Hemlock, next door to her old university chum Peter Knox, small town politics are about to get nasty. To quote the blurb on the dustjacket, Peter finds he can be friends with rabbits or with humans, but not both.
Fforde is taking on some heavy subject matter here in an almost whimsical manner. Every manner of bigotry is displayed in this book with Rabbits as the targets. He also throws in the most terrifying villain I've read in any genre recently in the form of Mr Foxe.
In short I loved this book from start to finish. It's laugh out loud funny. It's tense, it's thought provoking. I've not read enough LeCarre to know if the title is a deliberate little aim at the Constant Gardner but there's more than enough in the book to make me laugh, to make me think and to sympathise with the protagonists, as unlikely as their situation (or even existence) might be.
What could be a very silly book, and is indeed a very silly book, manages to be simultaneously a painfully accurate satire on some of the worst traits of humanity.
This might be my favourite Fforde to date.
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