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Geoff Nicholson - The Food Chain (Hodder & Stoughton)

ISBN 0-340-55372-3

First published in Great Britain in 1992.

The Everlasting Club is dedicated to constant pleasure and gluttony; they've been holding a non-stop party in their London premises for the past 350 years. Virgil Marcel, a restaurateur from Los Angeles, is invited to join, but has a nasty experience at his first meeting. When he declines to join the club, he is kidnapped and taken on a surprise journey.

The characters in this book are wonderful: Kingsley, the clueless Chief Carver of the Club; the sinister Charles Radcliffe; sensual Rose; serious Butterworth; Virgil's all-American father, Frank, and bizarre English mother, Mary. Virgil is absolutely the most normal of them all.

The novel is made up of chapters from the history of the club's members interspersed with modern-day events; though Nicholson is quite happy to sidetrack slightly and fill us in with more characterisation. The Americans do get a fair amount of bashing; the English are always one step ahead.

The Everlasting Club is a gentlemen's club taken to extremes - after all, when you can have anything you want, eat and drink as much as you want whenever you want; what do you do for fun? Read this and find out.

28 May 1998
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