The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs

Published on October 15, 2007

Don't worry, this book isn't as tawdry as the title or the cover art suggest. Nor is it as difficult to comprehend as his "Trainspotting" was. Luckily, the author limits his penchant for phoneticising Scottish dialect to the dialogues: read them aloud and you can find yourself exploding with laughter as the meaning suddenly surfaces.

As for the story, the best way to describe it is simply, well … shocking! But superbly so, with Irvine Welsh exploring the debauched world of restaurant kitchens.

The novel revolves around Edinburgh's Department of Health, where hard-drinking, womanising officer Danny Skinner is trying to rule the roost. Skinner is also reading "The Bedroom Secrets of Master Chefs" - a compendium of master chef Alan De Fretais' exploits just out of diners' sight.

Skinner hopes this treatise will give him insight into the world of his missing father, rumoured to be a chef, and release him from a treadmill of heavy drinking in cacophonous Edinburgh pubs interspersed with seeking enlightenment from the poetry of Rimbaud and Verlaine.

However, his mission quickly takes a back seat when the shy, teetotal model-railway aficionado Brian Kibby joins the agency. Skinner is consumed with a loathing for Kibby. His hatred takes a bizarre, even supernatural, turn when Kibby comes down with the symptoms of cirrhosis of the liver that Skinner should be suffering from, baffling medical specialists. When Skinner gets beaten up, it's the hexed Kibby who suffers the bruises. 

Kibby begins to transform from a wholesome nerd whose free time is spent in the attic with his train set or hiking with friends in the hills, to an Internet-porn-addicted creep - something that traumatises his God-fearing mother, who spends her time praying for her son's redemption.

With a nod to that other Edinburgh pairing, Jekyll and Hyde, Welsh sets a feverish pace for his story, with sequences that teeter between fantasy and reality supported by characters that veer from life-like to comic book.

One thing's straightforward, though: "Bedroom Secrets" is an addictive book that could have you reading late into the night.

The Garden of Eden

and Other Criminal Delights

By Faye Kellerman

Published by Headline Books

Available at Asia Books, Bt350

It is difficult for short stories, especially those with a criminal bent, to send a chill down readers' spines. Unfortunately, this collection by Faye Kellerman is no exception.

To give the author her due, though, she does manage to evoke the odd shiver with her tales of sinister goings-on.

Among these 17 stories, Kellerman has her famous sleuths Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus putting their heads together to solve mysteries in "Garden of Eden" and "Open House". The first is about a much-contested will and the second about a corpse found in a house that's on the market, which, strangely, doesn't put off the potential purchasers.

In "Bull's Eye" the author introduces Cindy, Decker's daughter, to the world of crime fiction, while "Holy Water" becomes a bit of a romp with a rabbi - all kosher, though.

"Mummy and Jack", in which Kellerman and her son and co-author Jesse explore the theme of the Oedipus complex, takes some discomforting turns, while "Tendrils of Love" reveals the scary side of virtual romance. 

Though not all stories are satisfying, and a few leave the reader wondering why the subject was ever picked up at all, Kellerman still manages at times to give an interesting insight into the human psyche.

Included are some very personal essays, especially "Small Miracles", in which she displays the grit of a daughter protecting her mother, and the exquisite "Summer of My Womanhood", where she recounts sweet times spent working in her father's deli.

Aside from a pedestrian feel to some of the plots, the only other complaint this reviewer has is that Kellerman insists on including a little introduction with every tale. This is sometimes acceptable, especially for her autobiographical accounts and those written with her children, but irritating in front of her so-called crime stories. After all, what reader wants to be told what to think of a tale before it's even begun?

As far as yarns go, this compilation may not be wonderful, but those who pick it up and persevere might find a thrill or two.