Title: Banquet of Lies Author: Michelle Diener
Published: October 22, 2013
Genre(s): Historical Fiction
Page Count: 352
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:LONDON, 1812: Giselle Barrington is living a double life, juggling the duties of chef with those of spy catcher. She must identify her father’s savage killer before the shadowy man finds her and uncovers the explosive political document her father entrusted to her safekeeping.
Posing as a French cook in the home of Lord Aldridge, Giselle is surrounded by unlikely allies and vicious enemies. In the streets where she once walked freely among polite society, she now hides in plain sight, learning the hard lessons of class distinction and negotiating the delicate balance between servant and master.
Lord Aldridge’s insatiable curiosity about his mysterious new chef blurs the line between civic duty and outright desire. Carefully watching Giselle’s every move, he undertakes a mission to figure out who she really is—and, in the process, plunges her straight into the heart of danger when her only hope for survival is to remain invisible.
French cooking, espionage, and romance: oh my! Banquet of Lies is a highly entertaining adventure through Regency-era London, featuring a young woman in disguise who manages to wreak havoc wherever she goes. With so much happening in this book, there was never a dull moment or boring chapter, and the end result was a fast-moving production of a novel.
Diener’s novel opens in Stockholm, as Gigi inadvertently witnesses her father’s murder. Reeling from shock and grief, she flees to London and goes into hiding, as a cook for her former neighbor. She then tries (note: tries) to avoid her father’s murderer and finish his final mission for the crown, but she mostly fails, because she’s…well, a pretty crappy spy.
The thing with Banquet of Lies is that, much as I enjoyed reading it, Gigi the protagonist is really silly. When you’re in hiding, do you pick a hiding spot a couple of doors down from your house? Do you find an employer who knew your family? Do you run around to balls where your employer will be or snoop through said employer’s correspondence? I hate to say it, Gigi, but you are a miserable excuse for a spy. Which, on the other hand, Diener seems to acknowledge—Gigi grew up very sheltered and really has no idea how to be covert, and other characters do point out how many mistakes she made when everything comes to light at the end.
Gigi’s ineptness aside, there were so many enjoyable aspects to this book. The romance was subtle and tension-heavy, between Gigi and her employer/neighbor, Lord Aldridge. Their attraction never took over the focus of the novel, and I thought the author did a good job of keeping it present but never too dominant.
I also enjoyed the presence of food in Banquet of Lies. Gigi’s mother loved to cook, and it’s a passion that was passed down to her daughter, fostered by the family’s French chef, Pierre. Though she’s an incompetent spy, Gigi is a very good cook, and I thought Diener did a good job exploring 19th century French cookery in the book. Obviously, without sight and smell and taste, words can only do so much, but I really enjoyed that aspect of the book.
Altogether, Banquet of Lies was a fun, mystery-thriller with a lighter edge that explored cooking, history, and romance. Michelle Diener is fully capable of telling an interesting, worthwhile story, and that’s what I found this book to be. It’s not a super-serious spy novel, but it’s not trying to be. I found that this book worked perfectly in doing what it set out to do: entertain.
