A rather silly detective story in the spirit of Jasper Fforde.

The collected hard-boiled cases of nursery rhyme-noir with Detective Harry Pigg. Contains The Third Pig Detective, The Ho Ho Ho Mystery and The Curds and Whey Mystery.

The latest mystery for the Third Pig Detective Agency.

The festive follow-up to The Third Pig Detective Agency.

From the comic genius behind CHET GECKO comes a new kind of fairy tale hero -- and a big, bad, crime-solving adventure! The houses of all Three (not-so-) Little Pigs were broken into and ransacked, and the Pigs are squealing for justice. So Prince Tyrone, ruler of Fairylandia, drags in the obvious suspect: Wolfgang. The lone wolf has big teeth, sharp claws, no alibi -- and a single day to find the real culprit and clear his big bad name. When Wolf (reluctantly) teams up with the fourth Little Pig to crack the case, the Big Bad Detective Agency -- and an adventure way funnier than your average fairy tale -- is off to a howling start!

This book is an appreciation of selected authors who make extensive use of humor in English detective/crime fiction. Works using humor as an amelioration of the serious have their heyday in the Golden Age of crime writing but they belong also to a long tradition. There is an identifiable lineage of humorous writing in crime fiction that ranges from mild wit to outright farce, burlesque, even slapstick. A mix of entertainment with instruction is a tradition in English letters. English crime fiction writers of the era circa 1913 to 1940 were raised in the mainstream literary tradition but turned their skills to detective fiction. And they are the humorists of the genre. This book is not an exhaustive study but an introduction into the best produced by the most capable and enjoyable authors. What the humorists seek is to surprise the reader by overturning their expectations using a repertoire of stylistic conceits and motifs (recurring incidents, devices, references). Humor has a liberating effect but is concerned too with "comic contrast" through ugliness and caricature. In crime fiction one effect is intellectual pleasure at solving (or attempting to solve) a puzzle. Another is entertainment but with serious undertones.

Accused of ransacking the houses of three not-so-little pigs, Wolfgang is given one day by the ruler of Fairyland to find the real culprit, an effort that is assisted by a fourth pig. By the Edgar Award-nominated author of the Chet Gecko Mysteries. Simultaneous.