A Shot in the Dark by Lynne Truss
This mystery did not receive a high rating on Goodreads, but I loved it and thought it was hilarious. I now plan to read everything I can get my hands on by Lynne Truss. The author of the nonfiction books Eats, Shoots & Leaves and Talk to the Hand, her mysteries include Psycho by the Sea, Murder by Milk Bottle, and The Man That Got Away. Life at Absolute Zero, available this month, offering twenty-six short stories about the eccentric inhabitants of a small wind-battered town on England’s South Coast. A multi-talented author, journalist, radio broadcaster, and dramatist with a terrific website.
A Shot in the Dark begins with a third person narrative describing Brighton’s Detective Inspector Geoffrey Steine, who becomes famous in 1951 for his decision to take his police force for ice cream and avoid doing anything about preventing the `Middle Street Massacre’ in which most of Brighton’s criminals wipe one another out in a vicious battle.
Welearn thatshortly after Inspector Steine (pronounced ‘Steen’) arrives in Brighton, (on June 9, 1951, to be exact) ‘Frankie G’, a junior member of the Giovedi family, “and therefore ranked as underworld aristocracy,” is found dead on Middle Street, shot twice from behind.
The Giovedis owned various legitimate restaurants in the town while also running very lucrative extortion and gambling rackets, and the teenaged ‘Frankie G’ was the apple of their collective eye. [p. 5]
The Giovedi Family (based on the seafront); immediately blames Fat Victor’s gang (based at the Casino) and members of both gangs meet for a shootout on Middle Street. Inspector Steine’s decision to stay out of the fray and take his colleagues for ice cream is regarded by all as “tactical brilliance” and not only is he the hero of a film created about the massacre, but he is also offered a side job as broadcaster on the BBC’s Home Service.
Truth be told, the Inspector is more interested in law theory than in policing. In fact, his decision to avoid the massacre may have been motivated by the fact that he finds “the entire concept of criminals morally repugnant” and wants at all costs to avoid coming into contact with them. When asked about a particular crime, he stares into space, a very serious expression on his face. Yet we are told that he is not thinking as deeply about wrongdoing as one would assume. Instead,
…he was strenuously attempting to place himself in a calm green place beside a tinkling stream, with kingfishers flashing overhead and a snatch of Elgar on the breeze. It suited him perfectly to believe that, in a single afternoon, all the serious criminals in Brighton had killed each other, leaving the town crime-free forever. Policing for him was about upholding the law and protecting the public, not dealing with the unprincipled louts who would shoot you as soon as look at you. [p. 25]
Fast forward to 1957. Inspector Steine is still in charge of the police force in Brighton, trying to convince himself and others that every criminal in the area was wiped out in the massacre. That’s tough because his colleague Sergeant Brunswick, who shows a policing zeal Steine works hard to suppress, keeps reminding him that crime continues in Brighton and that Stanley-knife Stanley, Diamond Tony, Fiveways Potter, and Ronnie the Nerk, among other crime bosses, are still very much alive. On the occasion that Stein does acknowledge robberies, assaults, drug-dealing, and other assorted offenses, he shrugs off doing anything and repeats this mantra to Brunswick: ‘I fear this case will baffle all our efforts to solve it.’
Into this situation steps “the well-educated and unusually keen” Constable Twitten, a top graduate in his training class and a prizewinner in forensic observation. Newly assigned to the Brighton beat, it is the contrast between Inspector Steine and Constable Twitten that not only adds humor to the novel but also makes it a convincing investigative mystery. It is Twitten who reads the files on recent break-ins and, very much on his own, begins to gather the clues needed to solve them. And when the murder at the center of the story occurs, it will be Twitten’s youthful enthusiasm and analytical skills that will combat departmental tradition and crack the case.
I loved this book too!