Peter Haining - Murder On The Menu

[dem]

Peter Haining (ed.) - Murder On The Menu: A Gourmet Guide To Death (Chancellor 1993: originally Souvenir, 1991)

Cover design: Slatter-Anderson

Peter Haining - Introducrion

I. Specialities de la Maison: Stories by some famous authors

Stanley Ellin - The Speciality Of The House
Ruth Rendell - Bribery And Corruption
Paul Gallico - Chef d'Oeuvre
Oliver La Farge - La Specialite de M Duclos
L. . Hartley - Three, or Four, for Dinner
Gaston Leroux - A Terrible Tale
Damon Runyon - So You Won't Talk!
Patricia Highsmith - Sauce for the Goose
P. D. James - A Very Commonplace Murder

II. Entrees Historigues: Tales From The Culinary Past.

August Derleth - A Dinner at Imola
Robert Bloch - The Feast in the Abbey
Alphonse Daudet - The Three Low Masses
Alexander Pushkin - The Coffin-Maker
Washington Irving - Guests from Gibbet Island
Richard Dehan - The Compleat Housewife
Walter Besant & James Rice - The Case of Mr Lucraft
G. B. Stern - The Man who Couldn't Taste Pepper
Roger Zelazny - Final Dining

III. Just Desserts. A Section Of Detective Cases

Agatha Christie - Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds
H. C. Bailey - The Long Dinner
Nicholas Blake - The Assassins' Club
Roy Vickers - Dinner for Two
Michael Gilbert - A Case for Gourmets
Lawrence G. Blochman - Rum for Dinner
Georges Simenon - Under the Hammer
Rex Stout - Poison a la Carte
Roald Dahl - Lamb to the Slaughter

Blurb:
Murder On The Menu is a mouth-watering collection of short stories from the masters of mystery, where food and death meet with devastating effect.

Ostensibly a crime collection but Haining could never quite dispense with horror and the supernatural even if, as in this instance, much of it was recycled from his earlier collections. Those with a taste for cannibalism are catered for with the much reprinted Ellin, Bloch and Dahl stories. Besant & James Rice's Case Of Mr Lucraft and L. . Hartley's Three, or Four, for Dinner are ghost stories, Patricia Highsmith's delicious black comedy is a modern day take on Poe's favourite theme, and August Derleth's contribution is another of his Cesare Borgia Chronicles of the City-States black magic adventures, though less effective than either Prince Borgia's Mass or Lesandro’s Familiar (I've not yet read the fourth and final entry, The Bridge of Sighs).

Gaston Leroux - A Terrible Tale: The garrulous old sea-dogs in the Toulon cafe are forever complaining that Captain Michel Alban has never taken his turn at spinning them a yarn, so he reluctantly obliges with the true story of how he came to lose his arm.

Following the sinking of The Daphne, the surviving crew put to sea in a raft and braved the seas for a month before reaching safety. Fortunately, the ship's doctor saved his instruments and his mastery of amputation spared them the nightmare of drawing lots to decide who they would eat first, and all thirteen survived, albeit in seriously truncated form. But the experience has left them with a taste for human flesh, and every anniversary, they reunite at Captain Beauvisage's home to enjoy an abominable banquet. Captain Alban, who fancies Beauvisage's wife Madge, ill-advisedly gate-crashes the party.

L. . Hartley - Three, or Four, for Dinner: (Life and Letters Dec. 1932). "It's a good idea ... but really, Dickie, I should give it up. The boy would be very scared, perhaps tell his parents, and then we might be mobbed and thrown in the Canal. It's the kind of thing that gives us a bad name abroad." Proof if any were needed that the English were already making a nuisance of themselves in Europe long before the advent of cheap package holidays. Over-privileged oafs Dickie and Philip are in Venice, making their way to the Hotel Splendide where they've arranged dinner with the obscenely wealthy if mysterious Count Giacomelli when they spot the corpse of a drowned man bobbing on the waves. Angelino the gondolier would prefer to leave it be, but Dickie, who is contemptuous of "Wops", "Dago's" and un-English things in general, insists on dragging the poor wretch aboard and no matter that he will ruin Angelino's precious carpet. While they await the Count's arrival - he's clearly not the most punctual of men - Dickie thinks it would be an absolutely super caper if they were to play a trick on the twelve year old page boy ...

Patricia Highsmith - Sauce for the Goose: New York. Olivia Avery arranges a fatal accident for her husband, Loren, after he unsportingly refuses to grant her the quickie divorce that would enable her to marry Stephen Castle, gold-digger and z-list actor. After the funeral, Olivia and Stephen duly tie the knot, but he only has eyes for her sexy cash and their marriage soon descends into mutual loathing. After a few half-hearted attempts at murder, Stephen wakes up to the potential of the late Loren's huge walk-in freezer. If he can only lure Olivia down to the cellar ...

August Derleth - A Dinner At Imola: (Weird Tales, April 1929). Another of Derleth's On this occasion, Cesare learns that influential Florentines are planning a revolt against Vatican rule. To counter the conspirators, Cesare holds a dinner in honour of their leader, the young Duke Paulo di Colonna, and has his evil cohort, Luigi Reni, fashion one of his special candles in their guest's image. As it burns, the Duke complains of feeling unwell ...

Features a special guest appearance from Niccolo Machiavelli, though Derleth gives him little to do.

[dem]

Washington Irving - Guests from Gibbet Island: Evidently a Haining favourite. He first revived it way back in 1966 in his second anthology, Summoned From The Tomb (which also included Pushkin's The Coffin-Maker). Seventeenth century Communipaw, a Dutch community in New York. Aging swashbuckler Yan Yost Vanderscamp is duped by his long suffering whipping-boy Pluto into inviting three of his pirate pals down from the gallows to join him in a final orgy at The Wild Goose. The rotting trio oblige.

Alphonse Daudet - The Three Low Masses: First read this in issue 9 of Robert Lowndes' mighty Magazine of Horror, didn't much care for it then, and don't now. The venerable Dom Balageure is lured into the sin of gluttony when the Devil fills his mind with images of the Christmas feast awaiting him after he's completed Midnight Mass. The prospect of all those juicy turkeys and chicken drumsticks prove too distracting and the portly priest tears through a crudely abridged version of the service, fluffing his lines and messing up at crucial moments. St. Peter is thoroughly displeased. Think Charles Dickens at his most insufferably twee - The Story Of The Goblins Who Stole A Sexton will do - and you're almost there.

[Swampirella]

Jun 11, 2012 11:37:07 GMT dem said:

Peter Haining (ed.) - Murder On The Menu: A Gourmet Guide To Death (Chancellor 1993: originally Souvenir, 1991)

Cover design: Slatter-Anderson

Peter Haining - Introducrion

I. Specialities de la Maison: Stories by some famous authors

Stanley Ellin - The Speciality Of The House
Ruth Rendell - Bribery And Corruption
Paul Gallico - Chef d'Oeuvre
Oliver La Farge - La Specialite de M Duclos
L. . Hartley - Three, or Four, for Dinner
Gaston Leroux - A Terrible Tale
Damon Runyon - So You Won't Talk!
Patricia Highsmith - Sauce for the Goose
. D. James - A Very Commonplace Murder

II. Entrees Historigues: Tales From The Culinary Past.

August Derleth - A Dinner at Imola
Robert Bloch - The Feast in the Abbey
Alphonse Daudet - The Three Low Masses
Alexander Pushkin - The Coffin-Maker
Washington Irving - Guests from Gibbet Island
Richard Dehan - The Compleat Housewife
Walter Besant & James Rice - The Case of Mr Lucraft
G. B. Stern - The Man who Couldn't Taste Pepper
Roger Zelazny - Final Dining

III. Just Desserts. A Section Of Detective Cases

Agatha Christie - Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds
H. C. Bailey - The Long Dinner
Nicholas Blake - The Assassins' Club
Roy Vickers - Dinner for Two
Michael Gilbert - A Case for Gourmets
Lawrence G. Blochman - Rum for Dinner
Georges Simenon - Under the Hammer
Rex Stout - Poison a la Carte
Roald Dahl - Lamb to the Slaughter

Blurb:
Murder On The Menu is a mouth-watering collection of short stories from the masters of mystery, where food and death meet with devastating effect.

Ostensibly a crime collection but Haining could never quite dispense with horror and the supernatural even if, as in this instance, much of it was recycled from his earlier collections. Those with a taste for cannibalism are catered for with the much reprinted Ellin, Bloch and Dahl stories. Besant & James Rice's Case Of Mr Lucraft and L. . Hartley's Three, or Four, for Dinner are ghost stories, Patricia Highsmith's delicious black comedy is a modern day take on Poe's favourite theme, and August Derleth's contribution is another of his Cesare Borgia Chronicles of the City-States black magic adventures, though less effective than either Prince Borgia's Mass or Lesandro’s Familiar (i've not yet read the fourth and final entry, The Bridge of Sighs).

Gaston Leroux - A Terrible Tale: The garrulous old sea-dogs in the Toulon cafe are forever complaining that Captain Michel Alban has never taken his turn at spinning them a yarn, so he reluctantly obliges with the true story of how he came to lose his arm.

Following the sinking of The Daphne, the surviving crew put to sea in a raft and braved the seas for a month before reaching safety. Fortunately, the ship's doctor saved his instruments and his mastery of amputation spared them the nightmare of drawing lots to decide who they would eat first, and all thirteen survived, albeit in seriously truncated form. But the experience has left them with a taste for human flesh, and every anniversary, they reunite at Captain Beauvisage's home to enjoy an abominable banquet. Captain Alban, who fancies Beauvisage's wife Madge, ill-advisedly gate-crashes the party.

L. . Hartley - Three, or Four, for Dinner: (Life and Letters Dec. 1932). "It's a good idea ... but really, Dickie, I should give it up. The boy would be very scared, perhaps tell his parents, and then we might be mobbed and thrown in the Canal. It's the kind of thing that gives us a bad name abroad." Proof if any were needed that the English were already making a nuisance of themselves in Europe long before the advent of cheap package holidays. Over-privileged oafs Dickie and Philip are in Venice, making their way to the Hotel Splendide where they've arranged dinner with the obscenely wealthy if mysterious Count Giacomelli when they spot the corpse of a drowned man bobbing on the waves. Angelino the gondolier would prefer to leave it be, but Dickie, who is contemptuous of "Wops", "Dago's" and un-English things in general, insists on dragging the poor wretch aboard and no matter that he will ruin Angelino's precious carpet. While they await the Count's arrival - he's clearly not the most punctual of men - Dickie thinks it would be an absolutely super caper if they were to play a trick on the twelve year old page boy ...

Patricia Highsmith - Sauce for the Goose: New York. Olivia Avery arranges a fatal accident for her husband, Loren, after he unsportingly refuses to grant her the quickie divorce that would enable her to marry Stephen Castle, gold-digger and z-list actor. After the funeral, Olivia and Stephen duly tie the knot, but he only has eyes for her sexy cash and their marriage soon descends into mutual loathing. After a few half-hearted attempts at murder, Stephen wakes up to the potential of the late Loren's huge walk-in freezer. If he can only lure Olivia down to the cellar ...

August Derleth - A Dinner At Imola: (Weird Tales, April 1929). Another of Derleth's On this occasion, Cesare learns that influential Florentines are planning a revolt against Vatican rule. To counter the conspirators, Cesare holds a dinner in honour of their leader, the young Duke Paulo di Colonna, and has his evil cohort, Luigi Reni, fashion one of his special candles in their guest's image. As it burns, the Duke complains of feeling unwell ...

Features a special guest appearance from Niccolo Machiavelli, though Derleth gives him little to do.

I just savoured Stanley Ellin's "Speciality of the House". It seems I'm unusual in not having read it before now....those who want to can read it here:

codefool.org/wiki_165/index.php?title=Stanley_Ellin_-_Specialty_of_the_House

[bobby]

Jun 11, 2012 11:37:07 GMT dem said:

Those with a taste for cannibalism are catered for with the much reprinted Ellin, Bloch and Dahl stories.

    You're mixing up "Lamb to the Slaughter" with "Pig". All that gets eaten in "Lamb to the Slaughter" is a leg of lamb. (Albeit a leg of lamb that was used as a murder weapon.)

[dem]

Nov 27, 2016 13:53:01 GMT bobby said:

You're mixing up "Lamb to the Slaughter" with "Pig". All that gets eaten in "Lamb to the Slaughter" is a leg of lamb. (Albeit a leg of lamb that was used as a murder weapon.)

Quite right, sorry about that!