Foul deeds and fine dying

Pellegrino Artusi, the great gastronome and amateur detective, is back.

It is 1900 and Pellegrino's famed cookbook is in its fifth edition.

Flushed from his fortune and success, our hero joins a weekend party at the Tuscan castle of the wealthy agricultural entrepreneur, Secondo Gazzolo.

In this castle of winding corridors, secret passageways and clandestine meetings, Pellegrino finds a curious collection of guests, each with their own purpose for being there. But when one of the party is found dead in his locked bedroom, seemingly the victim of suffocation, it is up to Pellegrino and his old friend, the detective Ispettore Artistico, to solve what really happened, for the science of food is every bit as complex, rigorous and tantalising as the sublime art of investigation. A perfect "locked room mystery" that will have your brain and your tastebuds tickled. Translated from the Italian by Howard Curtis