Wildly inventive and often somewhat whimsical adventure tale about a police detective named Thursday Next (her father is a rogue timetraveller) in a Britain where the Crimean War never ended, genetic engineering is a hobby kind of like model rocketry is in our world, vampires and werewolves exist, and literature is popular enough that streetcorners sport vending machines that serve up passages from Shakespeare and the police force has a special branch, section 27, to deal with crimes involving literature (forgery mostly). Thursday Next is one such detective, before she gets drawn into an attempt to capture Acheron Hades, the third most evil man in the world. Hades, who cannot be photographed, and who can hear his name if it is spoken within a thousand yards, escapes and kidnaps Thursday's brilliant, eccentric Uncle Mycroft. Mycroft, you see, has invented a device that lets you enter into a work of literature; Acheron's plan: hold Jane Eyre hostage.
A neat premise, and the kind of inventive profligacy that I really admire in speculative fiction, plus an engaging heroine, and a real love of books. All in all, a winner.