Thursday Next No. III. Leaving Swindon behind her, to hide out in the Well of Lost Plots - the place where all fiction is created - Thursday Next, Literary Detective and soon to be one-parent family, ponders her next move from within an unpublished novel of dubious merit entitled Caversham Heights. Her husband, Landen, exists only in her memory and with Goliath and the Chronoguard on her tail in the real world , the safest place for her to be is inside the covers of a book. But changes are afoot in the world of fiction.. The much-awaited upgrade to the centuries old book system - in which grammasites will be exterminated, punctuation standardised and the number of possible plots extended from eight to an astonishing thirty two! - is only weeks away. But if this is the golden age in fictional narrative then why are Jurisfiction agents mysteriously dying? Perkins is eaten by the minotaur, Snell succumbs to the Mispeling Vyrus and Godot is missing. As the date of the upgrade looms closer and the bookworld prepares for the 923rd Annual Fiction Awards, Thursday must unmask the villain responsible for the murders, establish exactly just what the upgrade entails and do battle with an old enemy intent on playing havoc with her memories.