Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear.
Outrageously inventive, and downright hilarious. DCI Jack Spratt and DS Mary Mary investigate the disappearance of Goldilocks ("She was always such a fusspot - nothing was ever quite right for her"). They needed a good result after the three pigs sued for harrassment, and the papers had just uncovered the Little Red Riding Hood fiasco ("RED-CLOAKED TOT IN SWALLOWING DRAMA"). Berkshire is the obvious place to look, since it (and not, alas, Surrey) was declared a safe haven for bears after the passing of the Animal (Anthropormorhic) Equality Act: they clubbed together and built themselves a luxury apartment block, what with mountain streams and trackless pine forests being in short supply in Berkshire.
Not quite as coherent, I thought, as The Big Over Easy, the previous Nursery Crime investigation into the murder of Humpty Dumpty. But still the stratospheric flights of fantasy, the What on earth goes on in Jasper Fforde's head? and the literal lolz.
