by Lynne Truss
Part of Constable Twitten, book 3
First published 2020
Constance Carmichael dreams of quiet retirement mornings without deadlines. Death has other plans. Her sleepy town turns deadly as victims drop with the same bizarre signature: antique milk bottles at every murder scene. The police stumble through failed leads while bodies accumulate. Constance spots the pattern everyone else misses and launches her own hunt for answers. She questions quirky locals and chases false clues that lead nowhere. The killer strikes again as Constance fights the clock to decode the twisted logic behind each death. The murders look random and motiveless, yet she knows vital clues are hiding in obvious places. Constance teams up with surprising partners who see what professional detectives cannot. They track a murderer whose reasons are as bizarre as the vintage bottles used to kill. The solution lies scattered in plain sight, waiting for Constance to connect the pieces.
Genres: mystery, crime, contemporary, adult-fiction, detective
Vibes: clever, fast-paced, puzzle-driven, quirky, suspenseful
Tropes: amateur-sleuth, found-family, unlikely-partners
Setting: Town
Period: Contemporary
320 pages · Paperback · Bloomsbury Publishing
Content warnings: death, murder