I'm not an expert, but to me this book and its predecessor is just quintessentially English. I've been a fan of Truss' non-fiction for years, and always found her writing and wit excellent, and I genuinely enjoyed her first Constable Twitten book A Shot in the Dark. So I snapped up this sequel as soon as I heard about it.
If you've ever watched Yes, Minster, or Black Adder, or even Benny Hill, and laughed, you may enjoy this mystery series. But you absolutely have to suspend disbelief because there's a lot of silliness and dry mockery; the reward is not only the chance to be amused in a time of little amusement, but an impressive, intricately plotted mystery. There were so many balls in the air, and Truss kept them all up there without any apparent effort or stumbling. It started slow for me, but it gained momentum as this complexity revealed itself.
A lot of fun and I remain a big fan of Truss.