Blotto, Twinks and the Bootlegger's Moll - Hardcover

Simon Brett

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1780334737 ISBN 13: 9781780334738

Publisher: Constable, 2012

Synopsis

Due to financial hardships at Tawcester Towers, the Dowager Duchess has decreed that the only way the family fortunes can be restored is to marry Blotto off...to an American! Reluctantly, Blotto, together with Twinks and his trusty chauffeur Corky Froggett set sail. Awaiting him in Illinois is fabulously wealthy heiress Mary Chapstick, the only daughter of meat-packing magnate Hiram P. Chapstick III. But it's Twinks who discovers early on that all is not as it seems and that Hiram P. Chapstick III is in fact up to his neck in a bootlegging operation run by the notorious Chicago mobster, Spagsy Chiaparelli. Will Blotto and Twinks ever make it back to dear old Blighty?

About this title

About the Author

Simon Brett worked as a producer in radio and television before taking up writing full-time. He is the author of the much-loved Fethering mysteries, Charles Paris series and the Mrs Pargeter novels. In 2014 he was awarded the Crime Writers' Association's prestigious Diamond Dagger for sustained excellence and contribution to crime writing, and in 2016 was awarded an OBE for his services to literature. He lives in an Agatha Christie-style village in the South Downs.

Simon Brett worked as a producer in radio and television before taking up writing full-time. He is the author of the much-loved Fethering mysteries, Charles Paris series and the Mrs Pargeter novels. In 2014 he was awarded the Crime Writers' Association's prestigious Diamond Dagger for sustained excellence and contribution to crime writing, and in 2016 was awarded an OBE for his services to literature. He lives in an Agatha Christie-style village in the South Downs.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* P. G. Wodehouse meets Upton Sinclair meets Perils of Pauline in Brett’s latest 1920s romp. In this, the fourth in the Blotto and Twinks series, the hunky and hopelessly dim Blotto and his gorgeous and scarily brilliant sister, Twinks, transport themselves from the family’s stately British home, Tawcester Towers, to Chicago during the throes of Prohibition. The family is in throes themselves; Blotto and Twinks’ mother, the Dowager Duchess, has declared that only an enormous injection of money can solve the estate’s current disrepair—and steady streams of that green currency should be acquired from an advantageous marriage to an American. Enter a Chicago meatpacking magnate and Blotto’s engagement to his daughter. Once the unhappy pair of Blotto and Twinks arrive in Chicago, touring the stockyards and witnessing the assembly-line killing operation, their determination to end Blotto’s fate of joining this Chicago family business intensifies. Since this is Blotto and Twinks, the mood soon lifts, and we’re treated to a series of comic schemes that is heightened by Blotto’s blankness about what’s going on—his point of view during a speakeasy scene in which he believes the bootlegger’s protestation that he shoots only public enemies (about five during dinner, at point blank) is incredibly well done. This is not so much a mystery as it is a single protracted comic chase scene. The climax, set on the killing floors of the stockyards, is stop-laughing-and-start-clawing-at-the-armchair exciting. --Connie Fletcher

About this edition

• Publisher: Constable
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1780334737
• ISBN 13: 9781780334738
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 202