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In a parallel universe where England and Russia still fight in the Crimean
war, Thursday Next is a LiteraTec investigator whose job is to fight crimes
against literary art. Soon after the original manuscript for Dickens' Martin
Chuzzlewit is stolen in London without the thieve having left any clue (not
even on video-surveillance), Thursday is transferred to SpecOps 5 to advise an
agent about Acheron Hades, a master criminal with the power to control minds
and look like anyone. Having discovered that Hades has stolen the manuscript,
she attempts to arrest Hades, but she is wounded and her colleagues are killed
in the operation. After an investigation by SpecOps 1 who claims that Hades
has died in a car accident, she sees her future self telling her to take the
LiteraTec job in Swindon, her hometown. Upon her arrival she meets her family
an especially her uncle Mycroft who shows her his new invention the Prose
Portal, a device based on book worms that allow people to enter into literary
works. Besides her new colleagues, she also meets Jack Schitt, a
representative of the all-powerful Goliath corporation who recently promised a
new plasma rifle that would end the Crimean war. Some time later, the
manuscript for Jane Eyre is stolen by Hades, and Mortimer and his invention
disappear. Hades demonstrates his power by removing a minor character from
Martin Chuzzlewit, which causes all copies of the story get instantly
modified. Thursday and her colleague travel to Haworth to investigate, but are
delayed by a time distortion on the motorway which allows Thursday to talk to
her past self. Thursday and her colleagues manage to track some of Goliath's
associates, and they get a clue that the criminal is hiding in the People's
Republic of Wales. Soon after, Hades kidnaps Jane Eyre and threatens to kill
her unless he's paid a ransom. Schitt attempts to swindle the criminal who
escapes again, and they track him to his hideout in Wales. There Thursday
understands that Schitt wants to buy the Prose Portal from Hades to be able to
get plasma rifles from a promotion book about plasma rifles, as in reality
Goliath has been unable to develop the weapon. Convinced by Thursday to return
Jane to her story, Hades goes into hiding in the story, quickly followed by
Thursday, who spends there several months with Rochester, searching for Hades.
They eventually find him and kill him, changing in the process the end of the
story (that most people don't like) to turn it into the happily-ever-after
version that exists in our universe.