🐷 Chef Maurice Manchot, our amateur sleuth, is a mustachioed French boisterous chef who own a bistro called La Cochon Rouge in Beakley, a little village in Cotswold countryside. His 'Hastings' is Arthur Wordington-Smythe, a food critic, who is often seen with Horace, his great Dane, the laziest dog in the world.
🐷 One day Chef Maurice was annoyed because their mushroom supplier, wild food importer and local foragers, Ollie Meadows, failed to deliver their order. So, Maurice went to Ollie's house, helped himself in through the back door, and found... nobody. Inside the fridge, however, he found a bag of truffle. An exceptional quality of white English truffle, in fact.
🐷 Suspecting that Ollie might have found a patch of truffle nearby, Maurice adopted a micro pig whom he trained as a truffle-hunter. Well, he'd prefer a dog actually, but little Hamilton (the pig's name) reacted perfectly to the smell of truffle, so... Off they went one day to nearby woods - Maurice, Arthur, and Hamilton. Then after a few miles, lo and behold… Hamilton ran and squeaked excitedly over there. Did he find it? Yes, he did! Not truffle, though, but Ollie's dead body.
🐷 The murder was investigated by the lovely PC Lucy Gaviston, their local constable. The case consisted of two break-ins to Ollie's house - though the one thing that missing is only an old map over the desk with Ollie's marks. What was it? And why anybody thought it worth enough to kill someone?
🐷 Then Hamilton was kidnapped when he was in a visit with Maurice and Arthur. Followed then by a threat to stop meddling something which isn't Maurice business, or else... (the kidnapper sent a chuck of bacon with the letter to highlight it!). The police didn't think this pignaping as something serious, no doubt their priority was Ollie's murder. Therefore, Chef Maurice must solve the mystery by himself, or otherwise the police won't find his Hamilton!
🐷 But Hamilton wasn't as weak as you might think. When his owner didn't come and save him for days, he must rescue himself. And he did! Chef Maurice found him on the road one day. I was wondering how he escaped, and rather annoyed that this part was never properly explained.
🐷 Anyway, Chef Maurice invited everyone we've met in the story (practically all the suspects) in a welcoming dinner party for Hamilton. It was a proper party, with delicious fancy foods and wine. The guest of honor even had his own fancy dishes! But that's not the main agenda. Chef Maurice was revealing the murderer, while channelling his inner Poirot - complete with the classic red herring (you'd thought he would accuse A, but then A isn't the murderer, but the very unexpected B).
🐷 All in all, this is an entertaining cozy mystery. Very hilarious, especially with the lazy Horace and little Hamilton. The story actually opens with a prologue about Hamilton. First, you'd think he's a guy, then probably a dog, but through the story you finally realized he's a micro pig. How cute!
🐷 As a murder mystery, there isn't much there. It clearly showed that it's a debut from the writer. It's made pretty sweet with a love story developing between PC Lucy and Patrick, Chef Maurice's sous-chef, and has cute cover with Hamilton in it. And with the delicious foods Maurice cooked, you'll find yourself a nice light and fun book, perfect for a holiday read!
Rating: 3,5 / 5
A micro pig? How cute. :D
ReplyDeleteAnd smart too! ;)
DeleteI loved Hamilton too; I read one more short story from this series which was also fun but not the other two books yet. Sadly the author only seems to have written three novels
ReplyDeleteI wish Hamilton is still in the two other books! When a micro pig appears in a book's prologue, he must be an important character, musn't he? ;)
DeleteI seem to have noticed the short story. Must check this again. Thanks for reminding me.