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Blotto and Twinks #10
Blotto, Twinks and the Maharajah's Jewel
'A new Simon Brett is an event for mystery fans' P. D. James
Anyone for cricket - and a spot of burglary?
An idle conversation on the merits of the glorious game with an old Etonian chum is just the excuse Blotto needs to put himself forward for a cricket tour to foreign climes... and so begins the next adventure for our intrepid duo, where the action takes them to India where, as everyone knows, the finest cricket players hail from - as well as the world's most skilled jewel thieves...
The Dowager Duchess has no problems in letting her two children go to the subcontinent as having her beautiful daughter Twinks married off to a massively rich Maharaja offers the Dowager Duchess the prospect of a permanent solution to the cash-draining maintenance of the Tawcester Towers plumbing.
So Twinks joins Blotto on a steamer bound for India, one that is full of young woman desperate to marry well there - only once having encountered the dashing Blotto, a lot of them fancy the idea of getting married before they reach their destination. And, unbeknownst to the siblings, also on the ship is the international jewel thief Archie Montmorency, passing himself off as one of Blotto's cricketing entourage. His real mission though is to steal the diamond which adorns the turban the Maharajah of Koorbleimee.
From the moment they arrive in Bombay, Blotto and Twinks are caught up in a rollercoaster of crime and adventure. Blotto's wish to concentrate only on the cricket is constantly frustrated by the machinations of Archie Montgomery, and he has to constantly resist the attempts of the Maharajah of Koorbleimee to marry him off to his beautiful daughter, his 'jewel', Suhana.
The customary cavalcade of jeopardy and hair's breadth escapes ensue, until Blotto and Twinks once again return, unwed, to Tawcester Towers.
Praise for Simon Brett
'Murder most enjoyable' Colin Dexter
'One of British crime's most assured craftsmen . . . Crime writing just like in the good old days, and perfect entertainment' Guardian
'Few crime writers are so enchantingly gifted' Sunday Times
'Simon Brett writes stunning detective stories. I would recommend them to anyone' Jilly Cooper
Anyone for cricket - and a spot of burglary?
An idle conversation on the merits of the glorious game with an old Etonian chum is just the excuse Blotto needs to put himself forward for a cricket tour to foreign climes... and so begins the next adventure for our intrepid duo, where the action takes them to India where, as everyone knows, the finest cricket players hail from - as well as the world's most skilled jewel thieves...
The Dowager Duchess has no problems in letting her two children go to the subcontinent as having her beautiful daughter Twinks married off to a massively rich Maharaja offers the Dowager Duchess the prospect of a permanent solution to the cash-draining maintenance of the Tawcester Towers plumbing.
So Twinks joins Blotto on a steamer bound for India, one that is full of young woman desperate to marry well there - only once having encountered the dashing Blotto, a lot of them fancy the idea of getting married before they reach their destination. And, unbeknownst to the siblings, also on the ship is the international jewel thief Archie Montmorency, passing himself off as one of Blotto's cricketing entourage. His real mission though is to steal the diamond which adorns the turban the Maharajah of Koorbleimee.
From the moment they arrive in Bombay, Blotto and Twinks are caught up in a rollercoaster of crime and adventure. Blotto's wish to concentrate only on the cricket is constantly frustrated by the machinations of Archie Montgomery, and he has to constantly resist the attempts of the Maharajah of Koorbleimee to marry him off to his beautiful daughter, his 'jewel', Suhana.
The customary cavalcade of jeopardy and hair's breadth escapes ensue, until Blotto and Twinks once again return, unwed, to Tawcester Towers.
Praise for Simon Brett
'Murder most enjoyable' Colin Dexter
'One of British crime's most assured craftsmen . . . Crime writing just like in the good old days, and perfect entertainment' Guardian
'Few crime writers are so enchantingly gifted' Sunday Times
'Simon Brett writes stunning detective stories. I would recommend them to anyone' Jilly Cooper
218 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 21, 2021
2 people are currently reading
50 people want to read
About the author
Simon Brett
329 books532 followersSimon Brett is a prolific British writer of whodunnits.
He is the son of a Chartered Surveyor and was educated at Dulwich College and Wadham College, Oxford, where he got a first class honours degree in English.
He then joined the BBC as a trainee and worked for BBC Radio and London Weekend Television, where his work included 'Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and 'Frank Muir Goes Into ...'.
After his spells with the media he began devoting most of his time to writing from the late 1970s and is well known for his various series of crime novels.
He is married with three children and lives in Burpham, near Arundel, West Sussex, England. He is the current president of the Detection Club.
He is the son of a Chartered Surveyor and was educated at Dulwich College and Wadham College, Oxford, where he got a first class honours degree in English.
He then joined the BBC as a trainee and worked for BBC Radio and London Weekend Television, where his work included 'Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and 'Frank Muir Goes Into ...'.
After his spells with the media he began devoting most of his time to writing from the late 1970s and is well known for his various series of crime novels.
He is married with three children and lives in Burpham, near Arundel, West Sussex, England. He is the current president of the Detection Club.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
April 30, 2022
Having met the author last week at a library crime festival I am glad that he admitted that this series is like Marmite ! I liked this book but not as much as his other series. I did find the made up language and names rather irritating and silly and they got in the way of the story. I think that I will stick to the other books, there are plenty to chose from.
May 30, 2022
I… just can’t. DNF after painful painful dialogue that’s trying too hard to be witty and just is annoying.
Examples from the first 10 pages of this book:
”But surely, Ponky, the Indians don’t play cricket in the winter, do they? They must get as cold as bare feet on an iceberg.”
“No, they do play and they don’t get cold. See, Blotters, the Indians have different seasons than us.”
“Do they? Well, I’m totally crab-whacked. That really is a bit of a rum baba. What’s wrong with the old spring-summer-autumn-winter routine? It’s worked all right for us for a good few millennia.”
“No, you’re still shimmying up the wrong drainpipe.” Ponky tried to explain. “In India, they do have the same seasons as us, but just have them at different times of the year.”
“Why, in the name of snitchrags, would anyone do that?”
(P. 4 & 5)
In a short story that would be fine but I can’t imagine reading 200+ pages of this…
Examples from the first 10 pages of this book:
”But surely, Ponky, the Indians don’t play cricket in the winter, do they? They must get as cold as bare feet on an iceberg.”
“No, they do play and they don’t get cold. See, Blotters, the Indians have different seasons than us.”
“Do they? Well, I’m totally crab-whacked. That really is a bit of a rum baba. What’s wrong with the old spring-summer-autumn-winter routine? It’s worked all right for us for a good few millennia.”
“No, you’re still shimmying up the wrong drainpipe.” Ponky tried to explain. “In India, they do have the same seasons as us, but just have them at different times of the year.”
“Why, in the name of snitchrags, would anyone do that?”
(P. 4 & 5)
In a short story that would be fine but I can’t imagine reading 200+ pages of this…
February 28, 2022
This book takes place in the 1920's. Blotto and Twinks, a brother and sister, are heading to India so Blotto can play cricket with some old classmates. On a stop over an attempt is made on Blotto's life and then a maharajah's diamond is stollen.
Blotto is attractive, aristocratic, and exceptionally unintelligent. Twinks is gorgeous, aristocratic, and brilliant. Blotto is incapable of speaking without using the slang of the 1920's. It becomes tiring after the first chapter. Every man she meets proposes marriage to Twinks.
This is very much a light hearted comic mystery. The mystery is never very mysterious and there are no clues or red herrings. It's evident from the moment the criminal is introduced who the criminal is. It has a bit of the feel of a PG Wodehouse without the finesse of Wodehouse.
Blotto is attractive, aristocratic, and exceptionally unintelligent. Twinks is gorgeous, aristocratic, and brilliant. Blotto is incapable of speaking without using the slang of the 1920's. It becomes tiring after the first chapter. Every man she meets proposes marriage to Twinks.
This is very much a light hearted comic mystery. The mystery is never very mysterious and there are no clues or red herrings. It's evident from the moment the criminal is introduced who the criminal is. It has a bit of the feel of a PG Wodehouse without the finesse of Wodehouse.
September 10, 2021
Although I usually dislike this series, I seem compelled to read one once in a while, and this one was a bit surprising. Twinks actually is concerned about someone else's feelings--a fellow aristocrat, of course, but it's something. Her brother Blotto finds a girl who is even more vapid than he is and enjoys the unprecedented experience of being admired for his intellect (the girl, in turn, finds someone even more vapid than she is to marry since she feels Blotto is just too clever for her). The plot is a farrago of impersonation, jewel thieves, and everyone's attempt to marry Twinks while the pair joins a cricket expedition to India.
March 30, 2025
If you're one of those boddos who love a quirky mystery, you've pinged the partridge with this one. Like all of Blotto and Twink's adventures, it's the panda's panties. In this one the siblings are off to India and immediately become entangled with a swarm of muffin-toasters intent on either marrying them or coffinating them. Broken biscuits! But the pair eventually show the boot scrapers that they're shinnying up the wrong drainpipe. Larksissimo! So, settle down, fire up your brain box, and uncage the ferrets. If you've figured out the puzzle by the end, give the pony a rosette! If not, you'll feel kippered like a herring.
August 29, 2021
A amusing tale of attempted murders, and theft. A mystery that is more about the characters than the mystery itself. The mystery is almost incidental. We pass through at least half the book before there is any mystery to be solved at all, nd then our detectives do not actively seek an answer for some time.
Not being british, some of the British words and phrases that aren't shared with me in addition to the boffing jargony nonsense that people often spout, plus the intellectual conversations that Twinks sometimes spouts, can make some things difficult to follow.
Not being british, some of the British words and phrases that aren't shared with me in addition to the boffing jargony nonsense that people often spout, plus the intellectual conversations that Twinks sometimes spouts, can make some things difficult to follow.
September 28, 2025
For me, Blotto and Twinks are an escape when reading mysteries with violence. This volume was more repetitious in phrases, than past adventures. Predictable, fun, a lark! I’ve read Brett’s other mysteries, that’s how I met B & T. Can’t take them too seriously, that’s their appeal. Looking to next adventure!
August 4, 2021
Madcap, fun, crazy 1920's British slang.
September 5, 2021
WAY too much (presumably) period slang which distracted me from the story
December 13, 2021
A fun romp, with some occasional VERY sharp zingers thrown in.
April 20, 2022
As ever Blotto and Twinks never fail to please; a cracking story and a pleasure to read.
August 18, 2022
Always a treat to spend time with Blotto and Twinks.
December 4, 2022
I just could not get into this book.
“Me old length of knicker elastic” just about covers it!
“Me old length of knicker elastic” just about covers it!
December 22, 2025
bubbly in the most British way 🥰🥰
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews