• Age: 8 to 12
• Grade: 3 to 7
• Reading age: 8 to 12

A delicious blend of mystery, history, and top-notch cuisine.

Neil Flambé may be fourteen years old, but he’s also a world-renowned chef. Patrons pay top dollar and wait months for reservations at his tiny boutique restaurant. But Neil is more than a fantastic cook—he solves crime too. Ever since he used his kitchen know-how and keen sense of smell to acquit a man of murder, he’s been helping Police Inspector Sean Nakamura crack case after case.

But when some of the best chefs in town turn up dead, the crime scenes turn culinary. Police are stumped, and the only clues are the scents of mysterious spices and a journal that may have belonged to…Marco Polo? Neil must find a way to connect the past with the present and solve the murders—or he could end up as the prime suspect!

 

KEVIN SYLVESTER est auteur laure´at, illustrateur, journaliste, animateur de radio, re´alisateur et documentariste. Il a e´crit les livres de la se´rie MiNRS et Neil Flambe´, ainsi que les livres documentaires Gold Medal for Weird et Sports Hall of Weird. Kevin est reconnu pour son habilete´ de faire un souper dernie're minute avec ce qui est moindrement consommable dans son frigo. Il peut aussi transformer des cercles en chats et des cornets de cre'me glace´e en dragons. Kevin habite a' Toronto.

 

KEVIN SYLVESTER is an award-winning writer, illustrator, reporter, radio sports host, producer and documentary maker. His books include the MiNRS and Neil Flambé series. Kevin's claims his superpower is that he can take a puck off the head and STILL finish a hockey game. He's also known for his ability to be able to make a last-second dinner from whatever smells reasonably edible in the fridge. And he can instantly turn circles into cats and ice cream cones into dragons. Well, cat and dragon cartoons anyway. He lives in Toronto, Ontario. Visit him online at www.kevinsylvester.online.

 

Kevin Sylvester's profile page

Neil Flambé and the Marco Polo Murders

Writer and broadcaster Kevin Sylvester has written non-fiction books for children and adults. In Neil Flambé and the Marco Polo Murders, he begins a new and entertaining fiction series for young readers.

Neil Flambé is an extraordinarily arrogant 14-year-old master chef who runs his own dazzlingly acclaimed restaurant while attending high school. Neil’s incredibly sensitive nose not only enables him to concoct mouth-watering dishes, but also to help the police solve crimes. When someone seems to be killing off the chefs of Vancouver, Neil can identify a tantalizing smell of cumin and chai on each body. But neither he nor Police Inspector Sean Nakamura can figure out who is doing this, why or how. It takes the knowledge of Neil’s slacker cousin Larry, the wisdom of his mentor Angel Jícama and the input of a few other characters to solve the crime – after a number of twists, turns, blind alleys, rotten puttanesca sauce and tasty recipes.

An avid historian, Sylvester uses the true story of Marco Polo’s journeys to craft the mystery. He writes with lots of humour, more than a few puns and great enthusiasm for food. He fleshes out his main characters with appropriate detail to make them more than stock characters and to make the reader look forward to the next book in the series. By the end of the story, Neil has learned a few lessons about what’s important in life, but retains enough arrogance to see him satisfactorily through a few more adventures. Neil Flambé and the Aztec Abduction will be appearing in the fall of this year.