The Devil's Feast

I listened to the complete Avery & Blake series, wonderfully narrated by Sam Dastor, in 10 days. Sorry, if this maybe will offend the admirable Miranda Carter, who must have laboured over these books, as a lot of research went into them. I love the two opposing characters of Avery & Blake. However, Avery sometimes seems a bit too innocent and blundering. The atmospheric depiction of India in the first book and 19th-century London in the last two, gives you a taste of the awful British class system and how the upper classes treated the oppressed and needy. The ‘sleuthing' parts of the stories were exciting and sometimes even surprising, but it was the historical background that kept me engaged. I do hope there will be more Avery & Balke stories and I hope they will return to India, as Sam Dastor's voice is so very well suited to narrate Indian material.

one whole star is for the fantastic narration

Well this was disappointing. I quite enjoyed the first two books in this series. Interesting historical era/setting, well researched, and fantastic audio. These qualities remain in place but there doesn't seem to be much of an actual plot.

Oh, there's tons and tons of characters, they talk. a lot but it doesn't in any further what there is of the story (someone has been poisoning members of the Reform Club in London). The author certainly demonstrates her research but unless you're reading this for information about the British political climate in the 1840s or menus from the era or detailed ingredients & preparation methods for said dishes you're out of luck.

Like the previous books this one is told from Avery's P.O.V. but that doesn't mean we know that much about him. He remains the eye through which we, the readers, encounter information, he's also still very much a naive babe in the woods, which I don't have a problem with, but still ....

Blake remains an inscrutable cypher not only to the reader but to Avery himself which begs the question as to why/how Avery remains in Blake's thrall. We've gotten glimpses of Blake but IMO not enough to sustain him as a character to love.

To add insult to injury the resolution of the mystery is beyond unsatisfying.