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FRENCH FRIED
by Nancy Fairbanks
Berkley, December 2006
304 pages
$6.99
ISBN: 0425213080


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

When American Professor Jason Blue, accompanied by his food-writer wife Carolyn, heads off to Avignon, France, to present a paper at a conference, he decides to spend a few days in Lyon first to renew his acquaintance with the chemistry faculty of the university.

Arriving in her hotel room, Carolyn notices a welcome pack of champagne and some pâté de foie gras, but some of the pâté has been eaten and there is a dying man on the bed. This turns out to be just the first of many attempts on the lives of Jason and Carolyn during their trip, but they have trouble believing they are really at risk as so few people in the area know them.

Whilst Jason works on a project at the university, Carolyn embarks on a round of sightseeing of Lyon accompanied by various departmental wives and their dogs, and tries to find out if any of them have a motive for harming her and Jason, and if they have alibis for the time of the attacks. As she does so, we are treated to a very interesting tour of the town which had me dashing off to the internet to learn more about Lyon's modern murals and old traboules, which are passageways formerly used by the silk workers.

Jason and Carolyn are also wined and dined extensively, and get to try many of the regions specialities, which we then see appearing as articles and recipes that Carolyn will publish on her return. The recipes were notably more interesting and complex than those found in many other culinary mysteries.

After a few days, the bruised and battered Blues move on to Avignon and the conference, where the attacks on them intensify, and Carolyn has the added tribulation of finding that Jason's attractive young research assistant Mercedes is present and causing all kinds of gossip as she throws herself at him. More sightseeing, gourmet eating and danger ensue.

The mystery was a real page-turner that I devoured in one sitting, although a heavy tip to the motive, and thus the attacker, was given about halfway through which removed an element of the surprise. Without such a clue it would probably be unfair on the reader, but I wish it had perhaps been withheld a little longer. Somewhat unusually for a culinary mystery, this story was told in the first person from three viewpoints; that of Jason, Carolyn, and occasionally the killer, which worked very well.

I wasn't particularly fond of the main characters – I never find a frugal husband very amusing, and both characters seemed insensitive, and almost totally unmoved by the death and destruction happening around them. But this is certainly a series I would pick up again hoping for a similarly compelling mix of gourmet food, travel writing, and crime.

Reviewed by Bridget Bolton, February 2007

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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