A Shot in the Dark
A Shot in the Dark A Constable Twitten Mystery by Lynne Truss Bloomsbury USA Bloomsbury Publishing Humor , Mystery & Thrillers Pub Date 06 Nov 2018
Review
A Shot in the Dark is a delightfully funny mystery in the classic vein. Lynne Truss skillfully captures the feel of 1950s Brighton in her newest comic novel. The captain of police likes to think all crime ended with the shootout between two gangs that not just made the news - a movie followed idolizing him. Little real police work was done before the arrival of Constable Twitten, a too bright newcomer. The murder of theater critic A S Crystal opens the door to an investigation into a decades old robbery and a conspiracy behind the scenes of Brighton’s cheery holiday veneer.
The quirky characters and the strange situations make A Shot in the Dark a funny book. It’s plot is cleverly composed - more than enough to satisfy the most critical mystery lover. A Shot in the Dark is the perfect antidote to the large quantities of movies that think pratfalls and cursewords are high comedy. If you like classic British mysteries or wry situational humor look no further.
4 / 5
I received a copy of A Shot in the Dark from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.
-- Crittermom
Description
A wryly entertaining new crime novel from Lynne Truss, New York Times bestselling author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves. It's 1957, and the famed theater critic A. S. Crystal has come to the British seaside resort of Brighton with something other than the local production of A Shilling in the Meter on his mind. Sitting in the Brighton Royal Theater with Constable Twitten, Crystal intends to tell the detective the secret he knows about the still-unsolved Aldersgate Stick-Up case of 1945. And yet, just before Crystal names the criminal mastermind involved, he's shot dead in his seat. With a new murder case on his hands and a lazy captain at the helm of the police department, the keen and clever Constable Twitten and his colleague Sargent Jim Brunswick set out to solve the decade-old mystery of the Aldersgate Stick-Up. As the partners venture deep into the criminal underworld that lies beneath Brighton's holiday-happy veneer, they begin to discover a criminal conspiracy that dates back decades. But will Brunswick and Twitten be able to foil the mastermind, or will Crystal's death become just another unsolved crime in this seemingly peaceful seaside city? With her characteristic wit, New York Times bestselling author Lynne Truss introduces readers to a cast of eccentric policeman and scheming criminals in a drolly delightful mystery you won't want to miss. Lynne Truss is a celebrated author, screenwriter, columnist, and broadcaster. Truss is the writer of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including the bestselling book on punctuation Eats, Shoots and Leaves. She lives on the South Coast of England with two Norfolk Terriers.
