Peter King

• Born: 1922
• Place of Birth: England

TYPES OF PLOT: Amateur sleuth; historical; thriller; cozy

PRINCIPAL SERIES: The Gourmet Detective, 1996-; Jack London, 2001-

Contribution

Peter King has contributed a light, witty, entertaining mystery series to the culinary mystery subgenre. His novels are filled with recipes, culinary trivia, details of food preparation, ethnic cooking, and information about the everyday functioning of a gourmet restaurant’s kitchen. Each work takes readers on both a food-oriented tour and a tour of an interesting locale, such as New Orleans or the vineyards of Provence, France. The Gourmet Detective mysteries have received enthusiastic praise from mystery readers and critics for their unique combination of a well-written mystery with an informative discussion of food preparation and recipes.

King’s Jack London series combines the historical mystery with the thriller and real-life characters with fictional events in mysteries that both entertain and inform the reader. King has enjoyed the same enthusiastic response to this series as he has to his Gourmet Detective series. The first novel of the series, Jewel of the North (2001), was named a Top Pick by Romantic Times magazine.

Biography

Peter King was born Christopher Peter King in England in 1922. He has enjoyed a number of careers. Trained in aerospace science, he was the leader of the team of engineers who designed and developed the rockets used in the Apollo program, which sent a man to the moon. King’s interest in how things work and in scientific investigation adds a special dimension to his novels. King’s second career was that of a professional chef. His firsthand knowledge of gourmet cooking and the food industry gives his novels authenticity and makes them a wonderful source of recipes and cooking tips.

In 1994, with the publication of The Gourmet Detective, King received recognition as a highly talented mystery writer. The novel was chosen by People magazine as the Beach Book of the Week. The favorable reception of his first novel inspired King to continue to write culinary mysteries, and in 2001 he began another mystery series with author Jack London as the principal character. Although King’s major success as a writer has been in the mystery genre, he has written stage plays, radio plays, and short stories. He has also written travel books and several technical books.

King settled in Sarasota, Florida, but he has also lived in France and Brazil and in several cities in the United States, including Chicago and Los Angeles. The settings of his novels reflect his familiarity and fascination with places.

Analysis

Peter King writes two distinctly different kinds of mysteries. His Gourmet Detective series investigates food as much or perhaps even more so than it does crime, which usually includes murder. The Gourmet Detective is hired to perform a job related to food, ranging from authenticating a rare spice to revising a medieval menu to teaching a cooking class. Without fail, he becomes involved in solving a crime.

King follows a basic formula in writing his culinary mysteries. The Gourmet Detective (who remains nameless) always narrates the story in first person, from his point of view. He meets and becomes interested in one or more attractive women whom he meets in the course of his food-related quest. Most of the time, the romantic adventure simply plays out in his mind, but on occasion, the romantic interlude becomes reality. Inevitably, a theft, a murder, or both occur as the Gourmet Detective is doing his food-related investigation, and he becomes involved in a police investigation. Therefore, the Gourmet Detective—who is always explaining that he is not really a detective—is doing what a detective does and often risking his life in the process.

The Gourmet Detective is extremely personable. In spite of his tendency to be slightly pompous and overly impressed with himself, he is a very likable character. Readers are quickly caught up in his enthusiasm for the culinary experiences that he is enjoying and the adventures, which add excitement to his life. King surrounds his principal character with unusual, eccentric supporting characters who flesh out the narration of his adventures. The members of the Circle of Careme in The Gourmet Detective, the eccentric Italian chefs of Death al Dente (1999), and the WITCHES (a group of female restaurant owners) in Roux the Day (2002) imbue the mysteries with a humorous tone.

In his Jack London series, King combines characters drawn from real life with fictional ones to create fast-moving, action-packed adventures. His main character is the real-life author Jack London. In the series, London works with the San Francisco police to solve crimes and to foil criminal plots. Although the stories are foremost hard-hitting adventures filled with danger and a considerable amount of violence, King allows London to digress in contemplation of his real profession, that of a writer. London describes his difficulty in creating female characters, how he draws on his own experiences to write his stories, and other aspects of the difficulty of writing as well as his love of his profession.

The setting of San Francisco’s Barbary Coast in the 1890’s is colorful and creates a realistic atmosphere. Just as the Gourmet Detective series is filled with details of the places the detective goes, so the Jack London mysteries are copiously detailed and bring places to life. Saloons, pleasure palaces, and the wharf play a role equal to that of the characters.

The Gourmet Detective

In his first mystery novel, The Gourmet Detective, King combines a tale of mystery with references to mystery writers and famous mystery characters and food information and recipes to create a novel with a threefold interest. Readers are interested in solving the mystery; the shared facts about mystery writing enable them to participate in the novel as insiders, and the commentary on gourmet dining entertains them with a look at a specialized field.

King’s skill in creating eccentric, humorous characters who remain believable is already apparent in this novel. The two supposedly rival chefs, Raymond and François, are the first of many such characters to appear in King’s mysteries.

Spiced to Death

In Spiced to Death (1997), the Gourmet Detective goes to New York City to authenticate a rare ancient spice called Ko Feng. The spice is worth millions of dollars, and in spite of elaborate security precautions, it is mysteriously stolen. Then, murders and sinister telephone calls cause the Gourmet Detective to worry about his own safety. He becomes involved with Hal Gaines, a detective with the New York Police Department. Gaines is the opposite of the food expert in every way, and this odd coupling adds a humorous touch to the mystery.

Although solving the mystery and retrieving the Ko Feng is the main plot of the novel, King also entertains his reader with a tour of New York restaurants and food fairs. His descriptions of ethnic restaurants and cooking methods add an interesting dimension to the novel. The discussion of food is an integral part of the narrative because the various chefs and restaurant proprietors all have an interest in obtaining some of the Ko Feng.

Dying on the Vine

In Dying on the Vine (1999), the Gourmet Detective travels to Provence, France, to investigate the reasons for a small winery’s insistence on purchasing its neighbor winery, which is much larger and whose owners have no desire to sell. The setting in the south of France gives King ample opportunity to include recipes, discussions of wine, and trivia about food—all of which are trademarks of this series.

The narration of the mystery in this novel incorporates somewhat more violence and bloodshed than is usual in King’s mysteries. On arriving at the winery, the Gourmet Detective discovers a corpse, which has apparently been gored by a wild boar. Bodies in wine vats, a bee attack, and exploding gliders, plus a private army of men trained to kill create the ambiance of a thriller in this novel. However, the novel is not without humor. Once again, King has created a number of entertaining characters, including Professor Rahmani of the Institute for the Study of Planetary Influence and Alexis Sukarov, the owner of a glider delivery service.

Roux the Day

The seventh novel in the Gourmet Detective series, Roux the Day, takes the reader on an exploration of the culinary world of New Orleans and the surrounding area. Using the setting of a television show, King presents an in-depth comparison of Cajun and Creole cooking. He adds humor to the presentation by creating participants in the discussion who are opinionated and, at times, aggressively insulting to the representatives of the rival cooking style.

Recipes for all the dishes that the city is famous for are included. Blackened redfish, gumbo, oyster dishes, catfish, crawfish, and all of the spices essential to both Cajun and Creole dishes, such as garlic, cayenne, basil, and paprika, are discussed. The group of female restaurant proprietors known as the WITCHES, who kidnap the Gourmet Detective, further elaborate this rich treatment of food. All the women serve Cajun and Creole dishes in their restaurants. However, some of them are experimenting with combining the traditional local cooking styles with other ethnic styles, such as Italian or Chinese.

The plot of the novel focuses on a missing chef’s book that belongs to the Belvederes, a family who owned a world-famous restaurant particularly renowned for its oysters Belvedere. The restaurant has been closed for several years because of a mental illness, which seemed to pass from generation to generation. Now the last member of the family, who has just graduated from business school, intends to reopen the restaurant and has had his lawyer hire the Gourmet Detective to find the book. However, he is not the only one interested in the book. Theft and murder occur, and the Gourmet Detective is once again working with the police and risking his life. King incorporates a considerable amount of local color in this novel as the food detective travels about the city in search of the missing chef’s book. The reader experiences the French Quarter, the paddle boats, jazz clubs, and Mardi Gras and its floats and mule-drawn carriages.

King repeats the odd couple Gourmet Detective/police detective motif that he used in Spiced to Death. New Orleans detective Lieutenant Delancey, a former New Yorker, interacts with the Gourmet Detective in much the same way as Hal Gaines does.

Dead Man’s Coast

The second novel in the Jack London series, Dead Man’s Coast (2002), is a historical thriller with a real-life hero. London is not the only real-life character in this mystery. It also features , Martin Beck, Carrie Nation, James McFarland, and Harry Houdini, all well-known individuals who played important roles in American life in the 1890s and early twentieth century. London knew all these individuals and was exceptionally close to Houdini. King anchors his novel in reality by using these characters, then adds fictional characters, including the very provocative music-hall entertainer Belle Conquest and the medium Eulalia Paradino. King’s setting is the bars, music halls, saloons, and the Barbary Coast wharf, which were all part of the daily life of San Francisco when London lived there. The plot takes London on a dangerous adventure from the Barbary Coast to Chinatown to the pleasure palaces of the city and to political rallies and social events.

Principal Series Characters:

• The Gourmet Detective is a former chef who makes his living as a consultant to the food industry. He specializes in locating rare and exotic foods, finding substitutes for hard-to-find ingredients, and authenticating historical food items and menus. He always emphasizes that he is not really a detective; however, his assignments inevitably embroil him in dangerous adventures involving theft and murder.
• Jack London is the real-life author who as a young aspiring writer lived on the Barbary Coast in San Francisco in the 1890s. London helps the local police battle the never-ending crime wave that sweeps the area.

Bibliography

Cannon, Peter, and Jeff Zaleski. Review of Dine and Die on the Danube Express, by Peter King. Publishers Weekly 250, no. 20 (May 19, 2003): 56.

Croan, Robert. “Delicious Mystery Is Served ’Al Dente’ on a Silver Plate.” Review of Death al Dente, by Peter King. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 26, 1999, p. 2.

DeCandido, GraceAnne A. Review of Roux the Day, by Peter King. Booklist 98, no. 18 (May 15, 2002): 1579.

Kershaw, Alex. Jack London: A Life. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1999.

Lambert, Pam. Review of The Gourmet Detective, by Peter King. People Weekly, June 10, 1996, 38.

“Peter King (Author of The Gourmet Detective).” Goodreads, www.goodreads.com/author/show/5185.Peter‗King. Accessed 20 July 2024.

Scaggs, John. Crime Fiction. New York: Routledge, 2005.