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  • Published: 27 October 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241966877
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 320

The Devil's Feast

The Blake and Avery Mystery Series (Book 3)



Blake and Avery investigate a murder in London's newest gentlemen's club

London, 1842. There has been a mysterious and horrible death at the Reform, London's newest and grandest gentleman's club. A death the club is desperate to hush up.

Captain William Avery is persuaded to investigate, and soon discovers a web of rivalries and hatreds, both personal and political, simmering behind the club's handsome façade - and in particular concerning its resident genius, Alexis Soyer, 'the Napoleon of food', a chef whose culinary brilliance is matched only by his talent for self-publicity.

But Avery is distracted, for where is his mentor and partner-in-crime Jeremiah Blake? And what if this first death was only a dress rehearsal for something far more sinister?

  • Published: 27 October 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241966877
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 320

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Praise for The Devil's Feast

Few sleuths are as idiosyncratic as Avery and Blake . . . Carter is still an irresistible conduit to crime in the past.

Financial Times

The keynote to this third Blake & Avery outing is enjoyment - in the sharp, clever plot, the telling detail and the author's uncanny ability to summon up the inner sanctum of the Victorian male club, a debtor's prison or Soyer's extraordinary dishes.

Daily Mail

Wonderful . . . the whodunit plot takes in celebrity chefs, extraordinary cuisine, international diplomacy and and Victorian political shenanigans. The Devil's Feast proves to be a sumptuous treat.

The Times

The Infidel Stain is a richly detailed and smartly plotted novel that firmly establishes Carter as an authentic voice in the world of historical crime.

Observer

The Strangler Vine was a promising and enjoyable debut - plenty of action, rich in historical detail, all crowned with a very clever twist. Carter has proved with The Infidel Stain that it was not a one-off.

The Times

An entertaining stew of blackmail, murder, cross-dressing and incomprehensible slang ... like Dickens, Carter's righteous anger at Victorian hypocrisy does not prevent her from revelling in it with infectious glee.

Sunday Telegraph

If this series is not bought for film, it would be another mark of the corporate stupidity that lost the BBC Ripper Street. It is, however, far more pleasurable and impressive to read.

Independent on Sunday

M.J. Carter is a slick storyteller who combines respect for a good murder with cool historical analysis . . . [The Infidel Stain] promises to be an equally pertinent comment, in the year of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, on the price of a free press.

A.N. Wilson, ‘Summer Reads’, Times Literary Supplement

While the relationship between the dynamic duo Blake and Avery evolves in a nuanced, tender way the real star of the show in this complex, clever novel is London itself.

Evening Standard

Witty and unfailingly readable...its contemporary resonance [is] all the more effective for being implicit.

Andrew Taylor, The Spectator on The Infidel Stain