Peter King (1) (1922–)

The London-based “Gourmet Detective” has been called upon by an old acquaintance to authenticate a rare spice that was thought to have been extinct for 500 years. The “Gourmet Detective” (I'll call him G.D. since he's never named) expects to stay in New York no longer than two or three days. However, his stay is unexpectedly extended when, first of all, the newly-authenticated spice disappears, and then his colleague is murdered. Since he is one of the few people who know what the show more spice looks like, G.D. agrees to help the police find the missing spice and the killer.

This is a typically formulaic cozy with perhaps a few too many suspects. However, the setting, the food history, and the descriptions of international cuisine nudge it above average. It has the feel of an episode of Murder, She Wrote, so it's not surprising that this series has been adapted for television movies on the Hallmark Movies and Mystery Channel. show less

I continue to read this series because of the great descriptions of food. I love to cook, and to read about cooking (I read cookbooks for fun), and the thing I love most about this series is that there's none of this "They ate dinner" nonsense; the exact dinner, often including how things are prepared is lovingly described.

That being said- I think some of the other reviews are way off when they trust King to have his facts straight about the details of food and wine. I am hardly an expert, show more yet in every book so far I've encountered at least one whopper of misinformation; enough to make me mistrust the "facts" of all the other data. In this one, for example, one of the top 3 chefs in Italy was very fussy and refused to serve any parmesan cheese that was not freshly made that day. And.. parm is widely renowned for being an AGED cheese. There can not possibly be anything like fresh-that-day parm. Given the context, he may have meant mozzarella... though that did not seem to me to be working in terms of flavor and texture in the context. There is also a reference to deadly interactions between Prozac and unspecified vegetables; while I have not extensively googled this, I have seen no such connection in actuality. Given, these, I wonder how much more misinformation is in all the "facts" that King cites and that people seem to be trusting to be true.

I like learning random facts from novels. Unfortunately, King makes enough stuff up that I cannot trust him as reliable.

And then we have the same problem here as with the others; for some reason- unknown- Our Hero is irresistible to the ladies. OK, this time the gorgeous chick seems to be getting paid for it, but still- I think we're looking at a real Marty Stu here.

Plotwise- recently, there's been a meme going around that says in part "Getting your protags INTO trouble via coincidence is fine. Getting them OUT of trouble because of coincidence is cheating." King cheats a lot this way.

I guess the difference between a good book with an unreliable narrator, and a mediocre book with an unreliable narrator, is partly whether or not the author realizes that the narrator is unreliable. I see no reason to believe that King recognizes this.

Still- lovely food descriptions! They're3 good enough to make me want to occasionally read one of these novels. show less

I admit I read this series only for the descriptions of food; much of the rest either irritates or bores me. Still, I do read them.

The food descriptions are lush, as usual, and make me want to cook ALL the things. I'm not a traveller, but if I were, New Orleans would be high on my destination list, because of all the idiosyncratic foods that all sound heavenly!

In this book, the plot is ... sketchy. At least Our Hero does not bed all the fair damsels he meets; in fact, some of them pull show more something of a reversal there! I'm sure King did research into NO history, and tends to use info-dumps to acquaint us with some of it. And the food descriptions are lush.

However- yet again, he got some facts wrong- one of which is key to the "resolution" of the mystery, and thus a really significant error. I can't describe it more without spoilers- but the DANGEROUS foodstuff turns out not to be as letal as all that, and indeed is now legal here in the US; it had more of a rep than it deserved, historically. And getting addicted via food made with it? please. It's like if poppyseed bagels were the same as shooting heroin!

Another stupid flaw: having an Asian chef tell Our Hero that wood ears/tree/ears/black fungus are "Unknown in the US and Europe. This was published in 2002, and at that time I had a small but treasured supply that I cooked with- me, an American home cook. (And I just got a HUGE bag of the things- the size of a pillow!- and that makes me happy!) But "unknown"? no. I bought the admittedly small and overpriced box at our local supermarket.

Thus, I am not sure how much I trust his NO history, either; when food info is the author's "thing", and he regularly gets aspects seriously wrong- how am I to believe anything else?

Still, the descriptions of food are lush and inviting, and Our Hero is not quite as much a jerk as he has been in some previous novels. show less

A delightful book. It's more of a travelogue than a mystery novel, but that is OK with me. The food and wine descriptions are entertaining. I'd have liked there to be a map to follow the train's journey.
The murder mystery is slightly over the top, but in the end it didn't matter who was the murderer.
All in all, an entertaining bit of fluff. Recommended for relaxing with a glass of wine (maybe one of the ones mentioned in the book.)
Unfortunately this appears to be the last in the series. I show more plan to read the previous ones though and hope they are as good as this one. show less