A Healthy Place to Die

by Peter King Narrated by David Baker

Overview

In this "feast of a food mystery" the Gourmet Detective visits a Swiss health spa where the treatments can be deadly (Publishers Weekly).



The gourmet detective realizes that the Alpine Springs health resort is not a typical spa somewhere in the middle of his first cocktail. Where other retreats promote abstinence, exercise, and bland food, this quiet little Swiss chalet preaches indulgence. Guests are allowed to eat, drink, and smoke as much as they want, and exercise is strictly optional. For this epicure, it is paradise-and it may also be his doom. He has come from London to speak about fine dining, but while here he fully intends on enjoying himself. One night he arranges a tryst with a fellow expert, a beautiful young woman named Kathleen Evans. They are deep in the woods, about to begin enjoying themselves, when something knocks the detective out cold. When he comes to, Kathleen has vanished, and the detective begins to suspect that life in the Alps is not as healthful as it appears.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

An intriguing element of the Gourmet Detective series (Spiced to Death, etc.) is the identity of the otherwise nameless sleuth. In this fifth feast of a food mystery, he agrees to fill in for his colleague, Carver Armitage, at the sumptuous Swiss Alpine Springs Spa, where he will demonstrate the preparation of a variety of exotic dishes, including duck, lobster and cheesecake. The night of his arrival, however, a planned tryst with a food columnist, Kathleen Evans, goes awry. Just as he's about to embrace her naked body, someone knocks him out. When he revives, Kathleen is gone. Things begin to look even more suspicious when the detective is almost simmered in a mud bath. Has he been mistaken for Armitage, or is someone out for the detective's hide? His own sous-detective may have arrived in the form of Elaine Dunbar, a young attorney collecting information on the use of food in crime. When the Gourmet Detective arranges a rendezvous with Elaine, he again loses consciousness and once more the woman is later not to be found. These disappearances, combined with the secrecy surrounding Elaine and the spa kitchens, indicate that all may not be so healthy at the spa. Action and suspense are ingredients used sparingly by King, but he positively stuffs the book with useful tips on food and cookery techniques. While the author provides no specific recipes, thought for food and food for thought are abundant. (June) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Kirkus Reviews

Carver Armitage, hospitalized for an unspecified `male problem,` arranges for his fellow foodie, the Gourmet Detective, to stand in for him at a toney cooking conference at a spa in the Swiss Alps. The G.D. has barely unpacked his apron and his leer when tall, blond, beautiful staff members are trying to kill him in the mud bath, and his tête-à-tête with a magazine columnist is interrupted by her death and her body's subsequent disappearance. Undaunted, the G.D. ties on his apron, demonstrates the proper procedure for preparing Shrimp Nissarde, and chats up a retired movie star with gorgeous eyes, a supermarket entrepreneur, a TV impresario, and a large cast of spa attendees, all of whom pay more attention to the menus and their stomachs than to each other. A reporter arrives and slings innuendo at the G.D. The dead columnist's editor checks in and dies in the herb garden—and again in the ice cavern. Carver Armitage, out of the hospital and presumably hungry, pops by. The G.D. demonstrates the proper way to roast a duck and bedeck it with orange. The G.D. is almost killed again, then learns that the husband and wife couple supervising the spa kitchen may have been involved in a poisoning in upstate New York. Disasters happen everywhere (except in the kitchen) before the G.D. sedately blots his lips with his napkin, ready for another go at the mud bath, this time with the movie star. Aimed, like its predecessors (Death Al Dente, 1999, etc.), at those who get turned on browsing cookbooks.

From the Publisher

"This appealing detective serves up nuggets of culinary trivia and wry foodie humor."—People

Product Details

BN ID:	2940176109740
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	06/15/2021
Series:	Gourmet Detective Mysteries , #5
Edition description:	Unabridged

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