416 pages
English language
Published 2013 by Thorpe.
As the financial crisis grips the planet, Zurich's leading restaurant, Chez Huwyler, seems protected from the gathering storm. But when Maravan, dishwasher and undiscovered culinary genius and Andrea, stunningly beautiful waitress, are dismissed, they must find another way to survive. Maravan's seduction of Andrea after cooking a dinner which mixes the aphrodisiac recipes of his ancestors and the alchemy of molecular gastronomy leads to a business proposition from Andrea: romantic catering for couples. But when their company falls on hard times, they must enter into a much more unsavoury business, in an underworld where murder and sex feed otherwise unquenchable thirsts.
This was quite entertaining, but also a bit shallow: short scenes, short dialogues. Maybe that's why I felt the big themes of the war in Sri Lanka and the bank crisis were a bit out of place in this book. Too much the author wanted to tell here.
