Customer Reviews

The Gourmet Detective

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I really enjoyed this mystery. My usual technique is to devour mysteries, quickly trying to figure out the whodonit. This book forced me to detour into The Joy of Cooking, Simca's Cuisine, and even the Dictionary. I love books that make me look up works like sabayon, cêpes, and the more than one meaning of flan. I thought I knew a bit about cooking, but was quickly humbled by the author's extensive knowledge. As a lover of light but witty fiction (it sure beats the sitcoms) and cooking (I loved reading about his detailed preparation techniques of even the simplest of meals!), I will definitely move on to the next title in this series.

Following the lead of my old economics professor William Breit -- who, as one half of the pseudonymous writing team Marshall Jevons gave us a murder-solving economist in 'The Fatal Equilibrium' and other titles -- more and more writers have served up murder mysteries in which someone uses the particular skills of his line of work to unravel a whodunit and bring the killers to justice. Peter King makes a noble attempt in this first entry in his by-now-long-running series. But while parts of the story were quite good, as a murder mystery, it was ultimately unsatisfying.

Like the Continental Op, our hero is unnamed. But he (like his creator, clearly) is a fan of detective fiction. Much of the book has an oddly self-aware quality, therefore -- especially when the hero and his Scotland Yard counterpart compare their interactions to those of famous fictional detectives and policemen. It's amusing at first to see the detective asking himself how Peter Wimsey or Charlie Chan would handle a certain situation, but even that begins to grow old after a while. Similarly, though it's refreshing that the author rejects the convention of the omnicompetent and almost omniscient sleuth -- the hero frequently complains that Holmes would have done a better job understanding a clue, or Travis McGee a difficult situation -- the solution to the crime, when it comes, struck me as in many ways unrelated to what our hero had been doing for the last 200 pages. Had I been following the wrong character around London?

Still, this is a fascinating concept, and not too bad for a first book. Certainly, the author knows his food (or at least, can snow an amateur foodie like me). I'm going to give some of the later titles in the series a try, and see if maybe things don't improve a bit over time.

When I first picked up this book, i was looking for a mystery to read for a class. This book made my assignment a bit more difficult because it is not exactly the step by step detective story that we are used to. The Gourmet Detective is actually in a catagory all its own. Not only does the reader drool from all the exotic and interesting foods the detective encounters, but the reader is forced to use a dictionary. Unless you are a chef specializing in food like that in the book, a dictionary is required. If you are looking for the average detective story, dont look here, if your palet is open to new tastes and you are willing to try something different for dinner, by all means open this book and enjoy.

I must admit I have savored this book very much. The Gourmet Detective is definitely a "gourmet"; as for being a detective...well, even himself doesn't use the term. I find the story a bit flat, the characters are not fleshed out at all, and the cute Sergeant Winnie seems a bit chauvinist, like dragged from nowhere into the story just to satisfy our protagonist's necessity for a link between him and the Police, while at the same time fullfilling his manly ego. I want to say I'm not a feminist, but the book suggests it that way. It's too obvious.

Another cause for dissappointment is that we never know the real identity of the protagonist. We just know he is the Gourmet Detective. Minor detail, I know, but still exasparating.

The volume is, however, extremely informative, even creative, as a food manual. Peter King is definitely not an amateur in this area. But then again, he probably should have written a cookbook. All this vast information about food and the appropiate wine to go with it would make a marvellous gourmet-reference book; but for a mystery, more of a storyline is needed; without cliches, and definitely not sexist.

This is the pilot of a true gourmet mystery series by a distinguished, professional chef/writer. The novel opens with the feel of the heft and breadth of Nero Wolfe visiting the office of Peter King's Gourmet Detective, requesting to be a client. Instead of Nero, though, one of the top 3 restaurateurs in London, Raymond Lefebvre is asking King's unique detective to discover and hand over the preparation secrets of the house recipe (Oiseau Royale) of his main competitor, Francois Duquesne of Le Trouquet d'Or, a second in the top 3 London eateries.

The sense of Nero Wolfe's heft and the casual tossing of terms of the highest of highbrow in culinary arts immediately fed my reading ambiance requirements and seated me solidly into the plot. I remained there absolutely, through-thick-and-thin tastes from heaven, through a labyrinth of gourmet mystery machinations, to the denouement in a banquet room, in which Inspector Hemingway popped the plot like a boil, with the precision of laser surgery, sans the gooey mess. Hemingway's maneuvering of a room plush with suspects showed a subtly grand finesse in competition with Agatha Chistie's Hercule Poirot, in my book.

(Which was a used copy from Lori Phillips, Amazon vender "lorisbookstore." I chose that copy because it was signed by editor Joe Veldt of St. Martin's Dead Letter Mysteries.)

Several mystery series have been touted as taking over the Christie legacy, and I have immensely enjoyed those which I've read, raving them to celestial ceilings in reviews. However, in this case, at and through the denouement THE GOURMET DETECTIVE didn't need to be touted. That scene did the deed in creme brulee spades. It went over the top, with just the right titration ("titre" in French) of panache to be legally dubbed the "creme de la creme" of The British Detective Novel Reveal.

The plot executed several unusual twists which stretched the norm of some of the strongest mysteries, while including a plethora of taste-bud-uptake-inhibitors, and arriving beyond the farthest-out-fancies of the food industry of London.

Whew. Whoa, and Wow. And a rapture of Yum. Now I have at least a clue of the nuances of ingredients, preparations, tastes, textures, and flavors of innumerable exotic dishes, whose foreign names I can't pronounce let alone remember. (However, if dripping tongues have memory cells, I'm in the creme!)

This novel was thoroughly packed with exquisite fictional "substance" of a variety of flavors, so much so that I was forced, with pleasure, to read it very slowly.

I read the second book in the series first (SPICED TO DEATH, see my lengthy review), mostly because the sequel was in Amazon's stock of Super Shipping Savers and I was a bit leery of the vender deals (having now easily and successfully purchased 4 books from various venders I no longer have a single qualm there). But, the main point in this paragraph is the different moods I felt between the pilot and its sequel in this series.

Though both books were superbly successful escape reads for me, I did notice that the composing styles were quite different, even though the Gourmet Detective character had the same personality in both novels.

As a related aside maybe I should note that true feminists might be grandly, even grossly put off by this character's attitudes toward females; however, to me the GD is who he is. At first I scrunched my nose, then easily decided to like him, foibles included.

In the pilot, the GD behaved more as the average P.I. does, set into the plot opening with a new client seated across the desk of the P.I.'s somewhat seedy, lackluster office, as the P.I. carries on an internal dialogue titled "To pay or not to pay the month's bills." The P.I.'s classic behavior is carried throughout the pilot, with bits of finesse added into the mystique of GD not being a "real" private eye. But, wait! The GD is enamored of that fictional genre and interestingly spouts almost as many titles and P.I. characters as does Carolyn Hart's Death on Demand series.

In the sequel, the GD does not spend as much time touching base with his office (can't recall exactly how much difference in time not spent) and spouts less about the contrasts between the "fictional" and "real" worlds of the P.I. These nose-in-the-air, ironic points to contrast from "reality" to "fiction," within fiction are not anything new in plot ploys, but I rather enjoyed the way Peter King regularly used this technique in the pilot, and I may have "grieved" the lack of these comparisons in the sequel, if I hadn't read it first.

Though the sequel succeeded excellently for me as entertaining fiction of the highest order, I do wonder what caused the diminishment of certain qualities which I relished in the pilot. Did Peter King naturally, instinctively evolve his style differently in the sequel, or was he guided by what he and/or his editors determined was a preference from reader feedback. Most of us know about the squeaky wheel syndrome which can sometimes shift/skew conclusions such that the true preferences of the reader majority might not have been clearly determined in these choices of style changes.

So, who cares about this evolution of style of a mystery series?

I obviously do, especially because I would sense a very, very great loss to the good taste in the mystery reading masses... if this excellent, sensual, sophisticated (but very approachable) series were to be discontinued, and the early books were to go permanently out of print.

This series and the Chas Wheatley series by Phyllis Richman (see my Listmania and reviews) are the two best authentically gourmet mystery series (which I've read) which are still (barely) on the market today. How lucky we are these series have been written by premier chefs or established, in-the-know food columnists from that currently elevated industry, true culinary artists who also happen to be great novelists.

How can we, as readers of good taste, allow such luxurious offerings to go "down the tubes" due to a misreading of what we want and will buy??!!

Thankfully, a few used copies of THE GOURMET DETECTIVE are still available through Amazon venders.

I've put # 3 in this series on my Wish List and will include it in my next Amazon purchase. I would order all the books in this collection at once, but this is a series to savor, not to speed through. However, we'll see what happens after I read # 3. Though I rarely court a burping indigestion by speeding my reading pleasures, I may have been shoved beyond savoring by then, into immediately ordering every last book featuring the Gourmet Detective.

Respectfully Submitted,
Linda G. Shelnutt

Oops. Just realized I may have been misleading. I used the words "authentically gourmet" to set that small category aside from other culinary and cozy mysteries I've read and reviewed, which have all been as entertaining to me, each in their unique ways, as the two series I've noted above.

However, though most culinary authors have great, approachable recipes and mouth-watering, in plot cooking; not even Diane Mott Davidson is an all-around-gourmet chef (or food columnist) by profession, in the sense that Peter King and Phyllis Richman are.

Joanne Pence's Angie Amalfi series and Tamar Myers's PenDutch series still top my list of all-around-favorite cozy culinaries.

The Gourmet Detective is the first in a series of mystery and adventure novels by Peter King. I read it second, after first reading 'Dying on the Vine" (third in the series) which was passed on to me by a family member who recognized my love of fine dining and wines. I enjoyed "Dying on the Vine" so much that I then immediately purchased several more Peter King books on Amazon, completing the first three books of the sequence as written by the author.

The Gourmet Detective introduces us to the concept of the non-detective ("I am not a Detective," he repeatedly says) who turns his personal interest into an occupation investigating gourmet-related crimes, that is those involving restaurants, gourmet cooking, recipes, herbs, fine beverages and dining. The writer Peter King does an excellent job marrying the adventure, suspense and investigation of the central crime theme in the book with the Detective's pursuit of the solution, all the while he is exposed to and "forced" to indulge in first-class gourmet restaurant meals and fine wines. After all, if the crime scene is in a restaurant, the Detective must investigate the crime scene.

This novel is set in England, and involves competing upscale restaurants suspicious of each other causing the problem, when things begin to fall apart in the kitchens and with their food suppliers. The Gourmet Dectective is called upon to unravel the mystery, which he does amidst much fine dining, which usually includes an apertif, a starter, entree and dessert. The description of the dining experience usually includes the specifics of the meal, the contents, often the source of rare ingredients, right down to the sauce on the squab. You can read about it calorie-free, and still enjoy the dining experience!!

Peter King sets his first three novels in this series in England, NYC and Provence, France respectively and in each case does an excellent job of making the reader at home in the location, the culture, expecially the local cuisine and the specific crime and surrounding mystery. I am hooked on the Gourmet Detective, and have just finished the first three books in the series, as you can tell, with great enthusiam.

I have taken some poetic license in mentioning books 2 and 3 in the series which immediately follow "The Gourmet Detective" to broaden the flavor, so to speak of this review. Book 2 is "Spiced to Death," and book 3 as mentioned early in the review is "Dying on the Vine."

Of interest to gourmets and wine-bibbers, this however has far too many personalities to be kept in mind when considering who-dunnit. Perhaps furtner entries in the series might pare the cast of characters, but I won't be following up. It was pleasant that the mystery-reading viewpoint character amusedly compared himself, to his detriment, to fictional detectives of fame.

I thought this book was a lot of fun. It's well-written, and has so many references to other fictional detectives, but also to other chefs. (I don't know if the chefs are fictional or not.)

But, they're witty references.

There are also many references to music --- and, of course, to wines. The Gourmet Detective likes to pick out music to go along with certain wines and foods. I thought that was kind of cool.

One reviewer says that the identity of the murder came from nowhere, and seemed preposterous. That's because of the red herrings. A good detective yarn is supposed to do it like that, I think.

Not that I'm an expert or anything. I'm just a crazy old lady who never goes anywhere without a paperback cozy murder mystery in her bag.

I didn't feel offended by the character of Winnie. Just a pretty lady for the detective to admire. What's so bad about that?

The fictional female detectives do the same thing, in their mysteries.

Yes, he does notice the womens' figures and so forth, but he's only thinking. There's no indication that he treats women with disrespect. I don't think it's unrealistic for him to just notice.

I also appreciate that there's nothing gross or vulgar --- well, except for the murder victim, of course.

If you like a whimsical, tongue-in-cheek murder, along with history, culinary arts and music --- and who doesn't? --- you'll love this book.

I really wanted to eat this book up, but found the style to be half baked and the plot reminiscent of separated mayonnaise. ( If I wanted bad cooking I would have stayed in my OWN kitchen!)

But most annoying was the waxed fruit basket of women that stirred the attentions our Gourmet Detective. Silky Syllabub or stodgy Bread and Butter Pudding depending on the breast size and/or leg length. Save it for the chickens.

I shall not be Spiced to Death.

The detail about the food and food triva gets it an extra star, but I'm not foodie enough to overlook the thin characters, incomprehensible plot, or meandering narrative style. If you really are that into gourmet cooking, there are many non-fiction books that will provide the research without forcing you to wade through a so-called detective story. Skip this one.