From Library Journal
Though known only as the Gourmet Detective (The Gourmet Detective, St. Martin's, 1996), this otherwise unnamed English sleuth mainly searches for rare food ingredients. Summoned by a friend to New York, he authenticates a secretive shipment of Ko Feng, a newly rediscovered spice supposedly unknown for 500 years. Someone steals the Ko Feng, however, and kills the friend. The police?in the form of a most attractive Italian female sergeant?request the Gourmet Detective's assistance, which he renders with charming aplomb. A convenient international food fair and several more beautiful women spur him on. Recommended.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
The Gourmet Detective's second adventure (The Gourmet Detective, 1996) brings the eponymous muncher/sipper/snooper to New York Harbor from London to identify a shipment of Ko Feng, a spice believed extinct for the past 500 years. When the Ko Feng disappears and the American friend/employer of our foodie hero is killed, the latter cheerfully tells the widow to ``keep busy'' as he himself plunges into a round of Big Apple bashes to locate the bad guy who's making a killing on the gourmet black market. Lt. Gaines of Unusual Crimes grumpily permits him fellow-traveler status with the cops (even procuring some King's Balm for his indigestion), and the Detective makes canap‚ contact with several women--among them ``attractive'' Italian-American Sgt. Gabriella Rossini, whose family owns a restaurant, and ``attractive'' Ayesha Rifkin, who caters ancient cuisines. Pity poor, ``attractive'' Gloria Branson, then, who merely investigates insurance fraud. (Or does she?) There are interviews with Turkish and Chinese culinary kingpins, and the reader is also titillated by an illegal sale of deep-discount goods under a devastated Bronx church--a sale to which the whole city seems privy. But the greater appeal here is to shoppers rather than eaters or lovers. Oh, yes, there's another killing. The author tries again to sell satire (without humor) and a thoroughly effete character on the strength of pro forma sexual pretenses and glorified gustatory lusts. --
Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
