The Man That Got Away
by Lynne Truss
Bloomsbury
10/15/2019
Mystery
304 pages
Goodreads

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I hope I’m not starting a long series here, but The Man That Got Away is the third book in a row I am either DNFing or not liking at all.
NB: the one I am currently reading is finally sounding really good so far – it’s Supernova Era, a scifi by Liu Cixin.

So, to go back to this mystery, I was really looking forward to reading it, as I so much enjoyed a nonfiction by the author: Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.

I did find some of Truss’s humor, and her attention to vocabulary and idioms, with lots of research  I am sure in British English as it was spoken in the 1950s. And young Constable Twitten is himself very particular about the vocabulary. He actually pays attention to words used, as possible clues on the identity of guilty parties. Which could be a cool idea.

But the whole thing was very confusing. At the end of the second chapter, after 47 pages, I was starting getting worried, seeing the huge number of characters I had already run into, with many plots and sub-plots, and I was looking forward to some ideas on how everything connected. But it got worse and worse, so I gave up on page 75.

Again, like for the last book I didn’t like, the synopsis is very promising:

In the second installment of Lynne Truss’s joyfully quirky crime series, our trio of detectives must investigate the murder of a hapless romantic; an aristocratic con man on the prowl; and a dodgy Brighton nightspot…

It is summer in Brighton and the Brighton Belles are on hand to answer any holidaymaker’s queries, no matter how big or small. The quickest way to the station, how many pebbles are on the beach and what exactly has happened to that young man lying in the deckchair with blood dripping from him?

Constable Twitten has a hunch that the fiendish murder may be connected to a notorious Brighton nightspot and the family that run it, but Inspector Steine is – as ever – distracted by other issues, not least having his own waxwork model made and an unexpected arrival, while Sergeant Brunswick is just delighted to have spied an opportunity to finally be allowed to go undercover…

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

And the cover was cool too!
Note to self: a good nonfiction author may not be that good in fiction, which makes sense.
Hopefully, my next review will be a very happy one.

VERDICT: Confusing

HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK?
Any other upcoming mystery I should also stay away from?
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I won this book from the publisher through a giveaway. As I didn’t request it for review, but just won it, I didn’t feel obliged to read it all.