The Gourmet Detective

I was so close to dropping this book multiple times. The mystery itself kept me going, which is why it was such a disappointment that the protagonist never actually solves it, spending most of his time hyper fixated on food, wine, and the “heaving breasts” of women in his vicinity. (It's solved by Scotland Yard mostly offscreen, with the police detective composing a final denouement in the vein of Poirot). The constant sexism/sexualization of women, off-handed racist comments about “oriental” music and food, and a solitary vitriolic comment about another character being a “boozy dyke” left me very happy to get the book off my e-reader .