N. M. Kelby

A truly amazing book - excellently researched by the author, and superbly written. It's the story about the great French master chef Auguste Escoffier -a real chef- and his rise to fame in France (and around the world). It's also a tender love story.
Escoffier's love of his wife was legendary, but not as well known as his powerful love for the great actress of the time Sarah Bernhardt. This novel takes place from around the late 1800's to Escoffier's death in 1920.
Kelby's novel is rich with powerful figures of the time - from well known world leaders to politicians and artists. The book is something else as well - a great and wonderful treasure trove of food and recipes from Escoffier's own books.
Glorious masterpieces of food are the golden threads that work its way through the book and these threads hold all the characters together. Almost every page has something about the magnificent and yummy dishes, so that an almost sensual relationship begins between the reader and the words.

N.M. Kelby knows how to write - her description of the food and the relationship between the characters is like a work of art. Her words are poetic, and clearly show about life at a time when things were more simple.. except for the love of beauty in food. Nourishing and fulfilling, this book will make you fall in love; both with the author, and the characters.

Magnificent!!

**A special note for N.M. Kelby: I read every word that Escoffier said, in David Suchet's voice. Like when he's playing Poirot? Yeah... and I loved it even more. :D… (mais)

This novel about the life of Auguste Escoffier and his wife is interesting and, as you might expect, full of extravagant food. The novel flits around the years and this can be confusing until you orientate yourself. The most successful chapters were those in the Escoffier household as his wife, Delphine, is dying and is looked after by Sabine, the cook. Escoffier is also elderly and not well. There are touching scenes when he is cooking for Delphine and showing Sabine how to cook. Other chapters cover Escoffier's time at the Savoy and in Paris and his relationship with the actress Sarah Bernhardt. These were sometimes less vivid. The author packed a lot in to this novel, we are taken to the period before the second world war and back to the first world war, we meet many famous people of the time and we have Escoffier's relationships. It is an ambitious novel that works better in some chapters than others but is a good read.… (mais)

From the book jacket: Take a slasher-movie actress, a Scottish circus clown, an FBI school dropout, a blind heiress, a junk-food-loving millionaire developer, and a Buddha-quoting bluesman, add a couple of murders in a normally sedate retirement community in south Florida … It all goes down as easy as a Key lime pie martini, the signature drink of the Bad Girl’s Bar & Grill.

My reactions
Reminds me of Carl Hiassen, but not quite so well written. Still it’s a fun, ridiculous romp of a tale that kept me entertained and engaged despite its total outlandishness. Frankly, none of these characters made sense to me, and the plot was completely unbelievable. But I did laugh out loud a few times and it was a fast read.

If you’re looking for a cozy mystery… well this is more gristly than that. If you want a hard-boiled crime novel … well this is too quirky for that. It doesn’t fit the bill for a suspense thriller either, because there is little suspense. The biggest mystery, as far as I’m concerned, is how Kelby came up with this crazy story.

Like Hiaasen, Kelby does impart a message about husbanding the natural environment and about the greed of developers.… (mais)