DNF
2019

I could not even finish book one, at 15%, so I am not going to try and read the next two books in the series. I feel like I would be forcing myself and rate it low.

Like millions of others, I adore Lynne Truss’ grammar guide Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. I even loved Truss’ offbeat horror novel, Cat Out of Hell, featuring a literal cat from hell and his dimwitted owner. But The Man That Got Away, the second in a mystery series was just a bridge too far.

I did not read the debut in this series, A Shot in the Dark; however, I don’t think that would have made a difference. Stop reading now if you plan to read the series from the beginning, and you don’t want spoilers.

Twenty-two-year Constable Twitten lives up to his name: He is a total twit. However, sadly, he is, by far, the smartest policeman in Brighton’s force in 1957. This blockhead brigade is so stupid that it has hired the king pen of the local crime syndicate as their cleaning lady, confuse obvious murders as suicides, and bungle their job in every possible way. In a choice between an obvious clue or fact and the most far-fetched fantasy, they’ll go with the latter every time.

Why was this premise hilarious in Simon Pegg’s film Hot Fuzz and simply frustrating here? Perhaps because you could see the movie’s Officer Nick Angel making progress in convincing his half-witted comrades; Truss makes it clear in this novel that poor Twitten, like the poor rabbit in the Trix commercial, is never going to get anywhere with this imbecilic constabulary. Or perhaps Pegg’s treatment was more deft. Regardless, I couldn’t force myself any further than one-fifth of the way through before I abandoned the novel.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing in exchange for honest, if painful, review.

THE MAN THAT GOT AWAY is by Lynne Truss, perhaps best known for her non-fiction work Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. This new title is her second mystery featuring Constable Twitten and I was looking forward to it after having heard some enthusiastic comments from readers about the first, A Shot in the Dark. In fact, the Wall Street Journal called that initial effort "the funniest crime novel of 2018." Perhaps I was not patient enough, but this mystery set in late 1950s Brighton, England did not have characters or humor that appealed to me. You may feel differently; Booklist suggests it for fans of Christopher Fowler's Bryant and May mysteries.

This is the second entry in the Constable Twitten series, and my fourth book by this writer. Truss is a reliably funny author, but this is her best yet. My thanks go to Bloomsbury and Net Galley for the review copy. You can buy this comic masterpiece now, but first you should read A Shot in the Dark if you can, because the background information you will find there will make this book even funnier.

Constable Twitten is the only capable, driven cop in Brighton, a small seaside tourist town in England. Steine, his boss, is unwilling to recognize that crime exists here at all; he is possibly the most gullible character to appear in fiction. For example, he believed an April Fool’s Day newscast about the spaghetti weevil, said to be ruining the spaghetti harvest. The other officer is slightly better, but when his dream of going undercover finally comes true, he becomes so immersed in his new role that he forgets he is supposed to be fighting crime. He is posing as a musician and spends all his time at the club performing or practicing; he doesn’t even bother to check in at the station. Twitten is left virtually alone to deal with Brighton’s crime wave.

Here is a pattern I’ve seen with Truss’s novels. The beginning is usually lame. The first time I read her work, I saw so many not-funny lines in the first ten percent that had I not owed a review, I might have been tempted to abandon it. However, even though I had decided that this was probably a pretty stupid book, I noticed a change as it went on, and by the last thirty percent or so, I was laughing out loud. Consequently, I was expecting a progression in this novel, from not-funny to slightly-funny to actually-pretty-funny to gut-splittingly-funny. I reminded myself that patience would pay off here, and I opened the book…and laughed on the first page. This book starts out at ten and it stays there all the way through.

There are several threads that are good here; we have the blind wax sculptor that makes dreadful likenesses for the wax museum, and there’s Inspector Steine being duped into believing a con woman is his long lost niece. But the most memorable, achingly funny bits are centered around Mrs. Groynes, the police station’s secretary who is also the janitor, and also the brains of an organized crime ring. Twitten knows this, and Groynes knows that he knows, but he cannot persuade another living soul that it’s true, and so there she remains, unhindered, using her job to obtain intelligence that in turn helps her underworld minions avoid detection.

It isn’t difficult.

Those that love excellent satire need look no further. I highly recommend this hilarious book to everyone.

This is a comic crime spree yarn with several intertwined plots and stories set in 1957 Brighton.
when that seaside city was a paradise of honky tonk and sleaze. It is the sequel to "A Shot in the Dark", the debut of the Constable Twitten series. Twitten is a new addition to the Brighton Constabulary and keen to do a good job. There's a mass of scams and schemes, including a murder, to occupy the Constabulary's time As Constable Twitten observes: "There are so many things going on, Mrs. G! I think it might be literally impossible to sort them all out!" Despite that observation, by the end of the book, things are sorted out due mostly to the efforts of Twitten and the police station charlady, Mrs. Groynes, who doubles as the local crime kingpin. Along the way readers are treated to the antics of an ensemble cast of dodgy characters.

This Twitten series is in many respects like M.C. Beaton's Constable Hamish Macbeth one, with its comic style of writing. Twitten is likely more ambitious than Macbeth and his superiors are more clueless than those of Macbeth.

In sum, it's a fun, easy-to-read romp with a satisfying ending. Twitten and Mrs. Groynes carry the story and explore how they can co-exist in future endeavours. The debut naturally introduced most of the recurring characters (such as Inspector Steine and Sergeant Brunswick) to readers, but this sequel can be read as a standalone without difficulty.

I requested and received an advance reading copy of this book from Bloomsbury USA Publishing, via Netgalley. The comments about it are my own.

The description sounds like something I'd love, and Lynne Truss is an amazing grammarian, so I'd thought I'd give a shot. Somehow the story, at least in the first couple of chapters, didn't reflect the synopsis or the style I expected at all.

Tightly plotted and very funny - this is Brighton Rock meets Endeavor meets A Shot in the Dark and, if that's a mix you enjoy, it's perfectly done. Ms. Truss has stayed far away from a sophomore slump in this second Constable Twitten novel and I hope she keeps moving in this direction for the next entries in the series! A strong recommend.

You don’t have to have lived in the 1950s to enjoy The Man that got Away. However, it is eminently easier to understand if you’re from England.

There is a murder, a con man, and a criminal mastermind in Brighton, a beach town on the English coast in1957. Only young Constable Twitten has a chance to solve the crime if his bungling co-workers don’t stop him.

I read many British mysteries. But this series continues to confuse me with Briticisms and product names available only in England. Possibly only in the past. My Kindle dictionary doesn’t even know what they mean. I also don’t like or relate to the bumbling policemen. They have an office cleaner who is really a master criminal. Their chief didn’t notice he was being conned by the local wax museum. Reading The Man that got Away forces the reader to totally suspend disbelief.

While I enjoyed this entry, the second, more than the first, I still believe it was only good—not great. Still the mystery itself was entertaining. Plus I enjoyed the delights and surprises of an English beach town. 3 stars.

Thanks to Bloomsbury USA and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

"A wryly entertaining new crime caper from Lynne Truss, author of “the funniest crime novel of 2018” (Wall Street Journal) and the New York Times bestseller Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

1957: In the beach town of Brighton, music is playing and guests are sunning themselves, when a young man is found dead, dripping blood, in a deck chair.

Constable Twitten of the Brighton Police Force has a hunch that the fiendish murder may be connected to a notorious nightspot, but his captain and his colleagues are-as ever-busy with other more important issues. Inspector Steine is being conned into paying for the honor of being featured at the Museum of Wax, and Sergeant Brunswick is trying (and failing) to get the attention of the distraught Brighton Belles who found the body. As the case twists and turns, Constable Twitten must find the murderer and convince his colleagues that there's an evil mastermind behind Brighton's climbing crime rate.

Our incomparable team of detectives are back for another outing in the second installment of Lynne Truss's joyfully quirky crime series."

I am SO glad Lynne Truss is putting her prodigious talent to use writing these comic capers. Also, you can be sure they're grammatically correct, a rarity with the scarcity of good editors out there.

I was excited to read this murder mystery by everyone’s favorite grammarian, Lynne Truss. The story was pretty much guaranteed to be well-written and told with humor. What I didn’t expect was the unrelenting silliness of it all. The mystery features supposedly well-trained police officers, but on almost every page there is someone doing something stupid, saying something ridiculous, ignoring obvious evidence, or acting in a generally unprofessional manner. All of this is absurdity is highlighted by an abundance of exclamation points! So very many exclamation points! The characters putter around accomplishing nothing useful for pages on end. This might work well as a play or a slapstick TV show, but on the page it is just annoying. Humor is great, but outright Fawlty-Towers-style silliness doesn’t work for me in the context of a murder mystery.

I’ve been reading this book on and off for what seems like weeks, and I regret that I just can’t bring myself to care about anything in it. My e-reader tells me I’m 59% of the way through this detective novel, and that’s unfortunately as long as I’m willing to wait for some real detecting to start happening. I considered not reviewing the book, until I realized that my unwillingness to finish a mystery after getting through more than half of it was highly relevant information for a review.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for sharing a digital advance review copy.

The Man That Got Away is a 2019 parody whodunit whose title comes from a Judy Garland song.

Set in Britain, it could almost be a noir mystery given some of the dialogue, although there were plenty of corny characters that would have no place with the jaded cast of a true old time detective novel. There’s also the minor fact that the book is clearly meant to be laugh-out-loud funny, which it is. It’s a comedic mystery.

“Weedy Petey” is murdered and a bumbling group of keystone cops nearly prevents the only two people in the constabulary with brains from figuring out the whole mess.

“The Brighton Constabulary are utterly, shockingly obtuse, so expect no help there.”

There are a huge number of characters in the book, which is fairly typical in mysteries where you need plenty of possible suspects. The law enforcement in this book are skewered for being easily distracted by tea and sweet treats. One man is killed and police can’t determine who the body belongs to despite finding the man’s initials on his belongings.

Very enjoyable book for those who like to laugh while reading mysteries.

Second in the series a delight to read.Sarcastic funny smart so well written.A unique well written book.Highly recommend,#netgalley #bloomsburyusa.

The second in the fast-paced Constable Twitten mystery series opens a month after the first book, with Twitten still reeling from the revelation not just of the presence of a Master Criminal in Brighton, but who that Master Criminal is. In this book, Sgt. Brunswick gets to go undercover in a seedy nightclub, while Inspector Steine confronts his past in his inimitable bumbling way, and Mrs. Groynes has a romance. I learned what a humbug was, and it was not what I expected. This is a charming series, well written and engaging, with a lively 1957 English setting.

2.5 stars. I wish to thank NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for providing me with an ARC in return for an honest review. I regret that I had difficulty maintaining interest in this book. I usually enjoy quirky characters, humour and mystery, and am sorry that this didn't work for me.

The language and witticisms belonged to Britain of the 1950s and the references were sometimes lost on me. I put effort into checking out unfamiliar words and names. Jumping from one clever witty passage to another disrupted the hilarity I should have been feeling and became tiresome. I did enjoy the quirky characters in the police department and in the criminal underworld. I think many readers would appreciate this book, but it's style didn't appeal to me.

Set in Brighton in 1957, the police force is mostly in denial about a rising crime wave. Constable Twitten is aware that a criminal mastermind is at work. While Inspector Steine is getting measured for a wax effigy of himself at a tacky museum, Twitten steps outside the room and overhears a conversation between two young lovers planning to meet and run away together. He makes notes of the details. Soon the young man is found dead on a beach chair. Twitten tries to convince Inspector Steine that he knows the identity of the man and his plans. Since the police department refuses to recognize criminal activity, they promptly close cases as unsolved, much to the frustration of Constable Twitten. Another body, this one headless, has been discovered in luggage. This case is closed as lacking in clues, but Twitten knows some clues exist.

There is much to enjoy in the interaction of the idiosyncratic characters, but I regret that much of the clever repartee failed to resonate with me.

This book was a nice change for me... I've been reading a lot of suspense/thrillers lately. While this book is a mystery with some suspense ( and a very nice twist at the end), its use of humor is very refreshing! I could really feel for poor Twitten!

I was not impressed by this book. I had a hard time getting into the story. Maybe it was just me, but I found it confusing and in parts boring. I could not connect with the characters at all. I do not like leaving negative reviews, but this mystery left me confused and bored.