Book Reviews: The Kopp Sisters Series; The Constable Twitten Series
We have a couple of firsts this week. This is my first time reviewing entire series here, as well as my first time reviewing audiobooks. Both of these series (in print or on audio, according to your preference) should make for enjoyable light summer reading, in case you’re on the lookout for something like that!
The Kopp Sisters series by Amy Stewart (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Audio versions read by Christina Moore
Book #1 in the series: Girl Waits with Gun (2015)
Amy Stewart based Girl Waits with Gun (isn’t that the best title ever?) on the intriguing true story of Constance Kopp, a woman forced to take up arms to defend herself and her sisters against a bullying factory owner in 1914 New Jersey. But that was just the start of the sisters’ story. Constance would go on to become one of America’s first female deputy sheriffs, and her sisters—no-nonsense, pigeon-raising Norma, and spoiled, stagestruck Fleurette—were colorful characters in their own right.
There were more stories to tell about the Kopp sisters, and so Stewart is still telling them. Just yesterday I finished book #6, Dear Miss Kopp, and now I’m eagerly looking forward to Miss Kopp Investigates, due out in September.
Stewart is the ideal writer to tell these stories, being a thorough and careful researcher, but also having enough imagination to create compelling fiction when the facts give out. So far she’s taken the Kopps through the end of World War I, during which they hunted German spies both at home and abroad. Sharing a strong sense of independence, not to mention the occasional family secret, the Kopps are unsentimental yet unfailingly loyal.
I read the first few books in the series in print, but somewhere along the way I tried an audio version, and liked Christina Moore’s reading so much that I stuck with the audiobooks from then on. Her straightforward style works great for the plainspoken and practical Constance, but she has enough flexibility and variety of tone to convincingly give us gruff Norma, girlish Fleurette, and any number of policemen and FBI officials that Constance works with.
The Constable Twitten series by Lynne Truss (Bloomsbury Publishing)
Audio versions read by Matt Green
Book #1 in the series: A Shot in the Dark (2018)
If you know the name Lynne Truss, it’s probably because of her 2003 bestseller Eats, Shoots & Leaves, one of the most delightful guides to punctuation ever written. When I found out she also wrote fiction, I had to give it a try, and I found it just as delightful. Set in the pleasure ground of Brighton, England, in the 1950s, the Constable Twitten series follows an earnest young police officer trying to deal with bumbling colleagues, shocking murders, and a wily nemesis in the very last place he would have expected to find one.
Truss strikes a fine balance between crime thriller and farce, creating a lively gallery of characters who are great fun to follow from story to story. Matt Green’s readings of the audio versions add to the fun, as he skillfully delivers a wide variety of voices and accents, ranging from intellectual young policeman to Cockney cleaning lady. I’ve just finished book #2, The Man That Got Away. Next up is #3, Murder by Milk Bottle, and then I should be all caught up in time for the release of the next book, Psycho by the Sea.
Book Links:
Girl Waits with Gun on Amazon
Girl Waits with Gun on Bookshop
Girl Waits with Gun on Audible
A Shot in the Dark on Amazon
A Shot in the Dark on Bookshop
A Shot in the Dark on Audible
Other Links:
In “Redeeming von Trapp,” my latest article for Christ and Pop Culture, I tied together some musings on Christopher Plummer and The Sound of Music, Dorothy L. Sayers and Murder Must Advertise, and the course of my own career.
I recently guested on the podcast The Commentarians, where my friend Joe Zaragoza and I watched and discussed the 2019 film adaptation of Little Women. Give it a listen!
(Book cover images copyright Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Bloomsbury Publishing, respectively.)