The Man That Got Away: A Constable Twitten Mystery 2
It is summertime in 1957 Brighton, and England’s conmen, along with their ‘skirts,’ flock to the seashore in order to defraud unsuspecting tourists and residents, relieving them of their hard-earned cash. How can a valiant officer such as Constable Peregrine Twitten resolve the mayhem when the town’s most powerful crime boss, Palmeira Groynes, posing as a charwoman, has infiltrated the police station and operates her syndicate from inside the place?
It seems as if things cannot get any worse until young Peter Dumont, town council clerk and admirer of Deirdre Benson, descendent of the Benson mob, is brutally knifed to death. Could the young lover’s murder have anything to do with the rumor that Joseph ‘Wall-Eye’ Marriott, a notorious trickster, operates in Brighton these days? And what is the latter’s connection, if any, with the Marquess of Colchester, who attempts to raise money by selling golden bricks to members of a bemused public? When his close friend turns out to be Mrs. Groynes’ long-lost lover, she and Twitten form an unexpected partnership to solve Dumont’s murder, foiling another dastardly scheme.
Having been enemies since the first Constable Twitten mystery, A Shot in the Dark (2018), will Twitten and Groynes be able to preserve their truce? Readers will hope to discover the answer to this question in the next installment, which is bound to achieve the same, wonderful mix of crime story, humorous escapade, and seaside pandemonium tale Lynne Truss created here. A highly entertaining read.
