Lynne Truss is hilarious, but with this fourth installment of the Constable Twitten series, she has outdone herself. My thanks go to Net Galley and Bloomsbury for the review copy. This book is riotously funny, and it’s for sale now.

Truss first came on my radar with her monstrously successful nonfiction grammar primer, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. A decade later I began reviewing, and one of my first reviews was for Cat Out of Hell, and later, the first in the Constable Twitten series, A Shot in the Dark, followed by the second, The Man That Got Away. I somehow missed the review copy for the third, Murder by Milk Bottle, which I discovered when I received the review copy for this fourth in the series; after sulking for a bit, I took myself to Seattle Bibliocommons and checked it out so that I’d be up to date when I began reading this one. It proved to be a good idea.

I tell you all this so you’ll see why I thought I had this author figured out. She had proven to have a distinctive, rather odd fiction writing style, which began in a sort of corny, groaning, oh-my-God-is-this-the-best-you-can-do style, but then sneakily grew better and funnier until by the second half, I’d be laughing my butt off. So as I open Psycho by the Sea, I have fortified myself to give Truss a minute or two to warm up. It will be funny, I am sure, but probably not just yet.

Surprise! This time, Truss had me laughing right out of the gate.

For the uninitiated, this satirical series is set in Brighton, a coastal resort town in England, in the 1950s. Our protagonist, Constable Twitten, is brilliant but irritating. He joins a small force that consists of Chief Inspector Steine, who has, until recently, been more interested in boosting tourism by pretending that Brighton has no crime, than in breaking up the formidable organized crime gang that runs amok, than in solving any of the crimes that have been committed. That was true until the last installment, when he inadvertently covered himself in glory and is now basking in the limelight, some of it literal as he is invited to speak on television or receive yet another award for his cleverness and courage. We also have Sergeant Brunswick, who would solve crimes gladly if he weren’t so everlastingly stupid; instead, he yearns to go undercover, even when there is no earthly purpose in it; when he does, he always manages to be shot in the leg at least once.

By now the readers know that the cleaning lady in charge of the station is a criminal mastermind. Mrs. Groynes is part cleaner, part den mother, and part overlord, and she makes herself loved and indispensable by showing up with cake, providing constant cups of tea, and listening to the cops to make sure that her operation is nowhere close to being discovered. In the first of the series, Twitten discovers what Groynes has been up to, but not a single, solitary cop or civilian will believe him. He’s new, after all, and they’ve known Palmyra Groynes forever. Mrs. Groynes, a crime lord? Don’t be ridiculous!

Now it seems that Palmyra has a competitor, someone that wants her turf and is willing to mow down her operatives in order to take it. I never would have seen this coming, and it’s an ingenious development. Old characters come back, and a new one, a formidable secretary sent down from London, turns the cop shop into a much more legitimate enterprise, and also sends Groynes packing. Even Twitten wants her back.

My favorite moment is when Twitten is being held at gunpoint, and he is so pedantic and obnoxious that he bores his assailant out of shooting him.

Not only does this book hit my funny bone right away, it also features a more complex, well balanced plot, and more character development. Until now, I had assumed no real character development was being attempted, because it’s satire, satire, satire, but now, it appears one can do both, and Truss does both bally splendidly.

“Flipping hedgehogs!” You have to get this book, but it will be more enjoyable if you read the other three first. Highly recommended.