If you like Flavia, try Peregrine Twitten!

If you’re a fan of Alan Bradley’s “Flavia de Luce” mystery series, now up to 10 books, you should certainly check out the new “Constable Twitten” mysteries by Lynne Truss while you’re awaiting Flavia #11.

Also set in England during the same time post-war period as the Flavia books, the two “Twittens” are “A Shot in the Dark” and “The Man Who Got Away”. Definitely read them in order. Set in the 1950s seaside town of Brighton, the novels feature the workings of a particularly inept British constabulary whose detectives, except Twitten of course, are especially oblivious about in-your-face clues and scheming criminals right under their noses.

It’s the books’ language and wit that sets these mysteries apart, and makes me liken them to Bradley’s Flavia. Lynne Truss is the author of “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” the fabulous grammar book that became a bestseller. (And if an author can make a book about syntax a chart-topper, just think what she can do with a plot-twisted mystery!)

The Constable Twitten books are droll and eccentric, with plenty of tongue-in-cheek ingenuity amidst the murder plot. The police station’s charlady (cleaning lady) Mrs. Groynes is among the best masterminds I’ve ever seen. Try a Twitten!