[Review] Miranda Carter: 'The Devil's Feast'

The year is 1842 and in Londen the gentlemen-only Reform Club has recently opened. Its kitchen is ruled by the flamboyant French chef de cuisine Alexis Soyer (1810-1858), whose spotless kitchen is a marvel of Victorian modernity. It has faucets with instant hot water and gas ranges with adjustable flames. Soyer's eponymous Lamb Cutlets Reform are still on the Reform Club's menu. But then, during one of Soyer’s lavish private dinners, a guest is poisoned. Hoping to avoid a scandal Capt. William Avery, the Watson to Jeremiah Blake’s Sherlock Holmes, is tasked with the investigation.

[Buy the book here]

The problem is that Blake is unavoidably 'detained' and unable to partake in the investigation himself. So, Avery is on his own and soon he's awash in suspects. Quickly we understand that he's intellectually not up to his task and he stumbles through the mystery, often totally unsure what to do next.

What do we make of this? We understand that a lot of research has been put into the story. We learn how Victorians - and certainly Soyes - were at the forefront of technology and we are shown which exquisite, yet sometimes too showy delicacies were created to impress the guests of the austere club.

Yet the story often lacks impetus and it drags on and on towards the inevitable last page. It just feels as if Miranda Carter was physically or mentally too tired to write a compelling storyline. If you had hoped to read a mystery that was engrossing, you might be somewhat disappointed, but Miranda Carter's beautiful writing always seem to flow effortlessly from her pen (or fingertips). That fact never fails to impress.

Buy the book here.