The charming first novel in a new comic crime series set in Brighton, from one of Britain's most-loved writers, the incomparable Lynne Truss. After the notorious Middle Street Massacre of 1951, when the majority of Brighton's criminals wiped one another out in a vicious battle as the local police force enjoyed a brief stop for ice cream, Inspector Steine rather enjoys life as a policeman. No criminals, no crime, no stress. He just wishes Sergeant Brunswick would stop insisting that perhaps not every criminal was wiped out that fateful day. So it's really rather annoying when an ambitious, not to mention irritating, new constable shows up to work and starts investigating a series of burglaries. And it's even more annoying when, after Constable Twitten is dispatched to the theater for the night, he sits next to a vicious theater critic who is promptly shot dead partway through.