Quill & Quire
With cooking shows proliferating on TV, and with the 2007 hit movie Ratatouille (about a rat that loves to cook), it was probably inevitable that someone would take a stab at creating the sort of character Kevin Sylvester cooks up in Neil Flambé and the Marco Polo Murders.
The first book in a mystery series called the Flambé Capers, Marco Polo Murders finds 14-year-old prodigy chef Neil Flambé trying to figure out who is killing Vancouver’s master chefs with poisonous chai. A prologue informs readers about the theft of a diary written by Marco Polo that contains information about a rare, lethal spice. Flambé, nicknamed “The Nose,” has an astoundingly refined sense of smell, and simply by sniffing the chefs’ corpses, he identifies all the tea’s ingredients except for one, that strange spice.
Riffing on the cliché of chefs as impassioned geniuses, Sylvester constructs a farcical story out of this mystery. But at 300 pages, the book feels a tad long for the intended audience, especially since Sylvester works in simplistic, goofy jokes at every possible turn, constantly stalling the momentum.
The plot is further derailed when Neil finally gets his hands on a copy of Polo’s diary but elects, for no good reason other than that he is busy running a restaurant, to lock it in a safe rather than having it translated immediately. Hey, why solve the mystery too soon? In addition, Neil is meant to be a genius chef, but when he does cook, his master dish is simply shrimp sautéed with garlic, onions, salt, and pepper.
What Sylvester does do well is conceal his killer. There is a large cast of characters, and it’s not clear until the very end whodunnit.
While the idea of a sleuthing teen chef may seem like a great one, the dish Sylvester serves up is half-baked and missing a few ingredients.
Review
“Want to boost your circulation statistics? Buy this book. Want to boost your circulation statistics some more? Buy two copies of this book. However many copies you buy, within a year they will either be read to pieces or be as hard to find as Bill Barilko’s body. Sports Hall of Weird will entirely meet the expectations of its readers, who will mostly be sports-crazy kids, along with some cross-over readers from the Guinness Book of World Records camp. This is a book that needs no pitching?. It is pure entertainment.” Canadian Materials on The Sports Hall of Weird “?a great book to use to get children more interested in the weird side of the Olympics as well as for light reading.”?suite101.com on Gold Medal for Weird “?a fun book to read and to share.”?Canadian Materials on Gold Medal for Weird
Book Description
Neil Flamb? is a fourteen-year-old wunderchef. He can cook anything, and he brags that he can cook it better than anyone else. He`s cocky, but he may also be right. Patrons pay top dollar and wait months for reservations at his tiny, boutique restaurant.
What many of Neil’s patrons don’t know is that he’s also a budding detective. It all started when he used his knowledge of cooking and his incredible sense of smell to acquit his mother’s client of murder. Ever since, Police Inspector Sean Nakamura has relied on Neil to help him crack case after case.
Now, the city’s crime scene has taken a turn for the personal. Some of the best chefs in town are turning up dead. The cops are stumped; the only real clues are a mysterious smell and some equally mysterious notes that seem to have something to do with Marco Polo. As more chefs fall prey to the killer, Neil finds himself working not only to solve the murders, but to eliminate himself as the prime suspect!
About the Author
Kevin Sylvester is an award-winning writer, illustrator and broadcaster. His books include Gold Medal for Weird (2009) and Sports Hall of Weird (2006). His book for adults, Shadrin has Scored for Russia, was nominated for the Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour in 2002. His illustrations have been seen in The Toronto Star, the Literary Review of Canada and on cbc.ca. Kevin is often heard on CBC Radio. He lives in Toronto, Ontario.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One
Salmon or Salmonella?
Neil FlambÉ stood in his kitchen and took a deep breath.
Was perfection too much to expect? he wondered. He spoke slowly into his phone.
“Gunter, the salmon you sent me is just this side of rotten. I have twenty people expecting a fantastic fish dinner tonight. What they are not expecting is a side dish of FOOD POISONING!” The man on the other end of the call held the receiver away from his ear. He was Gunter Lund, a famous chef in his native Germany before burning out five years ago in a pitched battle with a stubborn batch of bierwurst sausages.
He’d moved to Vancouver to escape the stress and had started his own seafood distribution business. But clients like FlambÉ made him wonder if it wasn’t time to go back to cooking. He felt a shot of pain in his stomach. His doctor had warned him about stress and ulcers.
It’s not any fourteen-year-old who can talk to me in that tone of voice, he thought.
That was certainly true, but Neil FlambÉ was not just any fourteen-year-old. He had his own restaurant, his own line of cooking pans, and his picture was on the front cover of the latest issue of CHEF! Magazine, under the headline “Is There Anything This Boy Can’t Cook?”
Neil FlambÉ was a star.
Another of FlambÉ’s talents? He could make an ordinary cell phone sound like a megaphone.
“HELLO? GUNTER? Are you still there? I need a different fish!”
Gunter wanted desperately to hang up. Instead he tried another approach. “Neil, please calm down. The man on the boat assured me that he caught the fish this morning.”
“Floating on top of an oil slick?” Neil yelled. “Listen, I have the top food critics from all the major newspapers coming for dinner, as well as the Spanish ambassador. If I serve that toxic fish to my guests, it will KILL THEM!”
“You’re exaggerating, Neil,” Lund said, struggling to stay calm. “It was fine when it left here. And it’s only a few minutes to your restaurant.”
Neil took a loud breath, prepping for another assault on Gunter’s ears.
“But if you insist,” Gunter continued quickly, deciding it was probably best just to give in, “I’ll send over another fish right away.”
There was a short silence.
“You’ll send two,” Neil said firmly.
Gunter paused. His stomach had started to churn, and he knew he’d need to pop another antacid or five when he finally got off the phone. FlambÉ was one of his best—or at least one of his best-paying—customers. He’d fork over plenty for a good salmon. The only problem was that he was a royal pain in the zielscheibe: the rear end.
Gunter rubbed his finger over his throbbing temple. “Yes, fine, two,” he said. The line clicked and FlambÉ was gone.
“He doesn’t even say danke schÖn,” Gunter muttered angrily. He turned in his chair and yelled out the window to his partner RenÉe, who was sitting on the dock fixing her nets.
“I need two fresh salmon right away!” Gunter shouted. “Still flipping, if you can find any like that.”
He burped. “And bring me some antacids, too.”
© 2010 Kevin Sylvester --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
