The Devil’s Feast

London, 1842. A diner dies after a private meal at the Reform Club, and Captain William Avery is asked to determine whether the death was caused by disease, contaminated food or deliberate poisoning. The investigation centres on the club’s celebrated chef Alexis Soyer, whose technologically advanced kitchens, elaborate menus and gift for publicity have made him one of the best-known cooks in Britain. Avery must initially work without Jeremiah Blake, who has been confined in the Marshalsea debtors’ prison after refusing to submit to a former patron.

Further illness raises the possibility that someone intends to destroy Soyer, discredit the Reform Club or sabotage a diplomatic banquet for Ibrahim Pasha arranged through Lord Palmerston. Questions about arsenic, food adulteration and the treatment of kitchen workers lead Avery from the club’s dining rooms into the commercial networks supplying Victorian London. When Blake re-enters the case, the partners must distinguish personal revenge from political conspiracy while confronting the contrast between spectacular elite consumption and widespread urban hunger.