We're happy to be hosting Mark Spivak on his FRIEND OF THE DEVIL Virtual Book Tour today! Please leave a comment or question for Mark to let him know you stopped by!
Title:
Friend of the Devil
Author: Mark Spivak
Publisher: Black Opal Books
Pages: 325
Genre: Culinary Thriller
Author: Mark Spivak
Publisher: Black Opal Books
Pages: 325
Genre: Culinary Thriller
In 1990 some critics believe that America’s
most celebrated chef, Joseph Soderini di Avenzano, sold his soul to the Devil
to achieve culinary greatness. Whether he is actually Bocuse or Beelzebub,
Avenzano is approaching the 25th anniversary of his glittering Palm
Beach restaurant, Chateau de la Mer, patterned after
the Michelin-starred palaces of Europe.
Journalist David Fox arrives in Palm
Beach to interview the chef for a story on the
restaurant’s silver jubilee. He quickly becomes involved with Chateau de la
Mer’s hostess, unwittingly transforming himself into a romantic rival of Avenzano.
The chef invites Fox to winter in Florida
and write his authorized biography. David gradually becomes sucked into the
restaurant’s vortex: shipments of cocaine coming up from the Caribbean;
the Mafia connections and unexplained murder of the chef’s original partner;
the chef’s ravenous ex-wives, swirling in the background like a hidden coven.
As his lover plots the demise of the chef, Fox tries to sort out hallucination
and reality while Avenzano treats him like a feline’s catnip-stuffed toy.
For More Information
- Friend of the Devil is available at Amazon.
- Pick up your copy at Barnes & Noble.
- Discuss this book at PUYB Virtual Book Club at Goodreads.
Book Excerpt:
Several years after the
opening of Chateau de la Mer, the triumvirate of Avenzano, Walsh, and Ross
appeared to be one big happy family, although there were rumors of strains in
the relationship.
One night, at the height
of the Festival of Champagne, there was an incident. Ross, a notorious
womanizer, was sipping Cristal with a redhead at the restaurant’s corner table.
His wife slipped through
the front door of the mansion, unannounced. Walking slowly through the dining
room, past the Medieval memorabilia and dramatic cast-iron griffins, she
strolled up to Ross’s table, took a revolver from her evening bag, and calmly
shot him through the heart.
The ensuing chaos did
more to establish Joseph Soderini di Avenzano in the American imagination than
his designer pasta, his Bedouin stuffed poussin,
his recipes transposed from Etruscan or Old Genoese, or his library of ten
thousand cookbooks.
This was more than a good
meal, after all. This was sex and death in Palm Beach.
Even more intriguing was the chef’s refusal to comment on Ross after his death,
except for informal and effusive eulogies in his famous baritone.
“Watch that Cristal,”
David’s friend Bill Grimaldi told him before he left Manhattan to do an
assigned story on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Chateau de la Mer. “It’s a
killer.”
Mark Spivak is an award-winning author, specializing in
wine, spirits, food, restaurants, and culinary travel. He was the wine writer
for the Palm Beach Post from 1994-1999, and was honored by the Academy
of Wine Communications for
excellence in wine coverage “in a graceful and approachable style.” Since 2001
he has been the Wine and Spirits Editor for the Palm Beach Media Group, as well
as the Food Editor for Palm Beach Illustrated; his running commentary on the
world of food, wine and spirits is available at the Global Gourmet blog on
www.palmbeachillustrated.com. His work has appeared in National Geographic
Traveler, Robb Report, Men’s Journal, Art & Antiques, the Continental and
Ritz-Carlton magazines, Arizona Highways and Newsmax.
From 1999-2011 Spivak hosted Uncorked! Radio, a highly successful wine talk
show on the Palm Beach affiliate of
National Public Radio.
Spivak is the author of two non-fiction books: Iconic Spirits: An Intoxicating History (Lyons Press, 2012) and Moonshine Nation: The Art of Creating Cornbread in a Bottle (Lyons Press, 2014). Friend of the Devil is his first novel. He is currently working on a political thriller set during the invasion of Iraq.
About the Author
Spivak is the author of two non-fiction books: Iconic Spirits: An Intoxicating History (Lyons Press, 2012) and Moonshine Nation: The Art of Creating Cornbread in a Bottle (Lyons Press, 2014). Friend of the Devil is his first novel. He is currently working on a political thriller set during the invasion of Iraq.
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