Knife Skills for Beginners

Cooking as entertainment, from reality shows to competitions to documentaries, couldn’t be more popular, and Murrin’s decision to set Knife Skills in the heart of a London cooking school is a smart one. Located in an old mansion in the super-posh Belgravia neighborhood, the school—which is residential—offers week-long classes for small groups of a dozen or so. The students, a bit of an odd crew, are super excited at meeting their instructor Christian Wager—he’s sort of a Gordon Ramsay type. When Christian shows up, one arm in a cast, and announces that he’s passing the class on to his good buddy Paul Delamare, the class groans in disappointment. Paul isn’t a celebrity like Christian, but he’s a darn good chef, and slowly the class warms up to him. Until there’s a murder as gruesome as you can imagine (hint: cleaver) and the class rather ghoulishly wants to continue the course—corpse be damned!—and with Paul the number-one suspect. From here, the book spirals out—there are red herrings galore, and nearly everyone seems to be a suspect at one point or another. Lots of fun to be had, especially with the characters Murrin creates.