Book Review for “Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe” by Nan and Ivan Lyons.
Summary: “Take one rich, eccentric, morbidly obese gourmand; add a beautiful, sexy dessert chef; mix with them a fast-food entrepreneur; and you’ve got the fixings for a stylish treat. After arriving in London to create a special dessert for the queen, New York’s leading food expert is suspected by Scotland Yard of killing off Europe’s master chefs. In a novel of wit and haute cuisine, great chefs collectively bully greengrocers for the best produce and would rather starve than eat each other’s cooking.“
Age: Adult; Genres: Genre – Mystery, Fiction; Settings: Era/s: Modern/Contemporary; Location/s: Europe – Various cities; Other Categories: Novel, Murder, Crime, Culinary, Amateur Sleuth, Humor, Thriller, Debut Novel, Series.
I’d like to preface this review by saying that I’ve long wanted to go back and review books that I read and loved before I started a blog, or even before I started reviewing books online. I decided to start with this one as it has been on my shelf for… ever, and I recently regretted not having reviewed it, when I needed a link in one of my #6Degrees of Separation posts. Granted, I also saw the film they made of this book, and I probably remember more of that than I do about the book, but that really doesn’t matter; I think remember enough to write at least a brief review, so here goes nothing. (And yes, the picture here is a scan of my own copy. Below you’ll see a newer cover.)
The beginning of this novel starts with us getting some background on the most important characters we encounter throughout the story. Among them includes the pastry chef Natasha, the gourmand food critic Achille, and the fast-food guy Max. When the first chef is murdered, we’re off to the races, as the fast-food guy and pastry chef try to get involved in solving the murder, but they hardly get anywhere when another chef is killed.
One of the fun things about the copy I have is that the authors mix their media here, and we even get different fonts for different parts. We get letters to a culinary magazine; we get scenes between Achille and his doctor (who is trying to get him to lose weight), and his new diet; we get Scotland Yard notes about the murders, and; we even get recipes of the chefs’ most famous dishes. What I found most fun was that it soon becomes obvious to the reader who is killing these chefs, but poor Scotland Yard and our amateur sleuths seem to mostly chase their tails. (In the movie they changed things around a whole lot, so the audience doesn’t realize who the killer is until near the end.)
In addition to this traveling mystery across Europe, there’s a whole lot of humor in this book, which might remind today’s readers of Benjamin Stevenson’s novels. For example, there’s a bit where a couple of chefs get angry about which country’s top chef should have been murdered first, out of respect for their dish, and honor for their country. Plus, there’s a bit where the one Italian chef is interrogated by the police regarding the death of a fellow chef, because they were mortal enemies. The chef explains that Italians would no sooner kill their worst enemy than they would the person they loved most in the world; Italians treasure and develop their hatred exactly like they do with love!
All told, this really is a fun book, especially because we slowly realize that each of the chefs are killed using a method that matches their dish! Yes, I warmly recommend this book, if you can find it, and maybe one day I’ll read the sequel (Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of America), or some of the other books that Nan and Ivan Lyons wrote together. By the way, Nan has some non-fiction books about food she wrote on her own, and those are books I would love to read as well. As for this, I gave it four out of five stars on Goodreads, and I stand by that rating today as well.
First published in 1976, “Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe” by Nan and Ivan Lyons is still available (via the following affiliate links) from Amazon, Blackwell’s (prices include international shipping), Waterstones, WHSmith, Kobo US (eBooks and audiobooks), Booksamillion.com, Barnes & Noble, iTunes (iBooks and audiobooks), new or used from Alibris, or Better World Books (promoting libraries and world literary), as well as from Bookshop.org and UK.Bookshop (to support independent bookshops, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic). This book was made into a movie staring Jacqueline Bisset, and the late, great George Segal.
This novel qualifies for the following reading challenges: NONE – I read this about 40 years ago, and am adding this review as a #ThrowbackThursday post!
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