Murder by Milk Bottle (Constable Twitten Series #3)

by Lynne Truss

Overview

The quirky and charming third crime novel from New York Times bestselling author Lynne Truss.

In the wake of two extremely high-profile murder cases, and with the summer of 1957 finally winding down, Constable Twitten is eagerly anticipating a quiet spell at work. But his hoped-for rest is interrupted when he and his colleagues find a trio of bodies, all murdered with the same unusual weapon: a milk bottle.

The three victims are seemingly unconnected-a hardworking patrolman, a would-be beauty queen, and a catty BBC radio personality-so Constable Twitten, Sergeant Brunswick, and Inspector Steine are baffled. But with Brighton on high alert and the local newspaper churning out stories of a killer on the loose, the police trio is determined to solve the case and catch the killer.

Charming, witty, and full of the joyfully zany characters Truss's readers have come to love, Murder by Milk Bottle will delight old fans and new alike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781635575972
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	11/10/2020
Series:	Constable Twitten Series , #3
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	70,491
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Lynne Truss is a columnist, novelist, and broadcaster whose Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation was a New York Times bestseller. She is also the author of A Shot in the Dark and The Man That Got Away. Truss lives in Brighton. lynnetruss.com

Editorial Reviews

★ 08/10/2020

In bestseller Truss’s outstanding third Constable Twitten mystery (after 2019’s The Man That Got Away), three murders by milk bottle over three hours in 1957 Brighton, England, lead to editorials wondering whether the city has become “the new milk-bottle murder capital of Great Britain.” The dead are “a young beauty-contest runner-up barely old enough to have enemies; the second, a much-loved patrolman of spotless record; the third, a visiting radio celebrity known for ‘skits’ involving female impersonation.” The victims apparently have nothing in common except the killer’s m.o.—each was stunned with a pint bottle of milk before the bottle was shattered and the shards used to fatally stab them. The killings are an unwelcome development for by-the-book Constable Twitten, who longs for routine pounding-of-the-beat rather than yet another bizarre whodunit to unravel. Meanwhile, he continues to contend with the machinations of the police charlady, Mrs. Groynes, who only he knows is a master criminal, and with the antics of his clueless boss, Insp. Geoffrey Steine. In her ability to blend crime and farce, Truss is in a class of her own. Agent: Anthony Goff, David Highman Assoc. (U.K.). (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

2020-08-19
Truss' third stroll down Memory Lane offers firm evidence that 1957 Brighton is packed with homicides.

In the space of one eventful evening, three locals—Barbara Ashley, the runner-up in the local Milk Board's Lactic Lovelies beauty contest; Andrew Inman of the Automobile Association; and Cedric Carbody, a celebrity contestant on the BBC radio show What’s Your Game?—are bashed and sliced to death with milk bottles. Sgt. Jim Brunswick, who’d looked forward to dating Barbara that very evening, is properly outraged; Inspector Geoffrey Steine, now that he’s finished his own brief stint on What’s Your Game? is mostly focused on the ice-cream sundae competition he’ll be judging; and Palmeira Groynes, the police station’s observant and efficient charlady, is preoccupied with the summit meeting of crime lords she’s arranging for her ex-lover Terence Chambers. So it falls mainly to Constable Peregrine Twitten to figure out what the victims had in common that would make someone attack them with such a bizarrely unlikely weapon. Guided partly by the very different clues he picks up from Mrs. Groynes, who nobody else believes is a master criminal, and Milk Girl Pandora Holden, who had eyes for him years ago, and partly by his cocksure sense of his own abilities, but never by any sense of decorum that would lead him to filter his monstrously tactless remarks to others, Twitten presses on as the body count rises to impossible heights before he finally identifies a killer who’s both unguessable and, well, unnoticeable.

Truss faithfully re-creates both the ingenious appeal and the formulaic limitations of golden-age puzzlers.

Kirkus Reviews

"A ridiculously funny caricature of the seaside town of Brighton." - New York Times Book Review

"Murder by Milk Bottle flows at a swift pace . . . Her sharp-toothed whimsy may be an acquired taste, but it’s one well worth savoring." - The Wall Street Journal

“Outstanding... In her ability to blend crime and farce, Truss is in a class of her own.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“A worthy follow-up to her delightful 2018 novel A Shot in the Dark. . . . One looks forward with glee to the novel's culmination-and to this quick-learning constable's future adventures.” —The Wall Street Journal on THE MAN THAT GOT AWAY

“The craft and care with which author Truss weaves her facts into a richly narrated but utterly hilarious tapestry is amazing. The reader may find himself wondering how she manages to keep her facts straight as she throws his own mental processes into such a delightful muddle.” —New York Journal of Books on A SHOT IN THE DARK

“Truss' language, unsurprisingly, sparkles, and her portrayal of class and its exasperating effect on even the British underworld is memorable. Readers of Agatha Christie are a natural audience for this study in peculiarity.” —Booklist on A SHOT IN THE DARK

“Delightful . . . Truss perfectly blends humor and detection.” —Publishers Weekly on THE MAN THAT GOT AWAY

“Witty and whimsical, Murder by Milk Bottle is frothy and fun.” —Historical Novel Society

From the Publisher

Read More