Roux the Day

By Peter King

When a Crescent City culinary dynasty loses its family cookbook, the London-based detective is on the scene “in this whimsical and entertaining mystery” (Library Journal).
 For five generations, the Belvedere family restaurant has been a Louisiana landmark. Unfortunately, the Belvedere clan inherits more than a talent for cooking from each other—they also have an unfortunate tendency of becoming insane. When the latest Belvedere patriarch loses his mind, his son attempts to take over the business, only to find that the ancient family cookbook has vanished—and with it the priceless recipe for the world famous Oysters Belvedere. The Crescent City will never be the same. A bookseller claims to have found the family heirloom, and attempts to sell it at auction—a daring Creole gambit that draws the attention of London’s famous gourmet detective. The sleuth visits the bookshop, but when he finds a corpse at the desk, he must lead a chase for the murderer and the stolen cookbook. One false step, and he’ll end up like a crawfish at a boil: in mighty hot water.

• Language: English
• Publisher: MysteriousPress.com Open Road
• Release date: Sep 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781453277294

Peter King

Peter King (b. 1922) is an English author of mystery fiction, a Cordon Bleu–trained chef, and a retired metallurgist. He has operated a tungsten mine, overseen the establishment of South America’s first steel processing plant, and prospected for minerals around the globe. His work carried him from continent to continent before he finally settled in Florida, where he led the design team for the rocket engines that carried the Apollo astronauts to the moon. In his spare time, King wrote one-act plays and short mystery stories. When he retired, in 1991, he wrote his first novel, The Gourmet Detective, a cozy mystery about a chef turned sleuth who solves mysteries in the kitchen. King followed it with seven more books starring the character, including Dying on the Vine (1998) and Roux the Day (2002). In 2001 he published Jewel of the North, the first of three historical mysteries starring Jack London. King lives in Sarasota, Florida. 

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Reviews for Roux the Day

[cissa_5 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I admit I read this series only for the descriptions of food; much of the rest either irritates or bores me. Still, I do read them.The food descriptions are lush, as usual, and make me want to cook ALL the things. I'm not a traveller, but if I were, New Orleans would be high on my destination list, because of all the idiosyncratic foods that all sound heavenly!In this book, the plot is ... sketchy. At least Our Hero does not bed all the fair damsels he meets; in fact, some of them pull something of a reversal there! I'm sure King did research into NO history, and tends to use info-dumps to acquaint us with some of it. And the food descriptions are lush.However- yet again, he got some facts wrong- one of which is key to the "resolution" of the mystery, and thus a really significant error. I can't describe it more without spoilers- but the DANGEROUS foodstuff turns out not to be as letal as all that, and indeed is now legal here in the US; it had more of a rep than it deserved, historically. And getting addicted via food made with it? please. It's like if poppyseed bagels were the same as shooting heroin!Another stupid flaw: having an Asian chef tell Our Hero that wood ears/tree/ears/black fungus are "Unknown in the US and Europe. This was published in 2002, and at that time I had a small but treasured supply that I cooked with- me, an American home cook. (And I just got a HUGE bag of the things- the size of a pillow!- and that makes me happy!) But "unknown"? no. I bought the admittedly small and overpriced box at our local supermarket.Thus, I am not sure how much I trust his NO history, either; when food info is the author's "thing", and he regularly gets aspects seriously wrong- how am I to believe anything else?Still, the descriptions of food are lush and inviting, and Our Hero is not quite as much a jerk as he has been in some previous novels.