Neil Flambé and the Bard's Banquet

Written and illustrated by Kevin Sylvester

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

978-1-48141-0-380

320 pp.

Ages 8-12

January, 2015

Boy chef Neil Flambé, now 15, can't seem to keep himself out of trouble, not even when he tries.   He tries to ignore a jar of old honey with its mysterious note in it that was part of a case excavated at a demolition in London and now the basis for a meal extraordinaire he is preparing for Lord Lane of Liverpool.  But an unexpected shortage requires the ostracized jar to be opened, and the note– with a poem, some numbers and a drawing of a key–is taken by Lane, a Shakespearean aficionado and thespian supporter, but not before Neil's cousin and partner, Larry,  snaps some photos of it.  

As luck (?) would have it, Lord Lane disappears and Her Majesty "requires" that Neil and his Nose–he can sniff out anything–promptly travel to London to smell out the mystery and, of course, find Lane and the "jewel" alluded to in the note.  Neil may have the Nose but it's Larry with his limitless knowledge of Shakespeare's work–I know, go figure–and his sweet affection for the ladies who enables Neil to search out the right sources and decipher the multi-layered clues.

The two are soon partnered with Rose Patil, the uber-brilliant chemist and acquaintance of Neil's sweetie, perfumier Isabella Tortellini. The thorny Rose, who is working at recreating the actual scents that Shakespeare's wife may have worn, agrees to help them decipher the note, suggesting their investigation begin with Will Kemp, a comedic actor whose friendship with Shakespeare had mysteriously sour.  Following clues about Drake's voyage, the Globe Theater, a clock and more, Neil, Larry and Rose, and eventually Isabella and her bodyguard Jones, begin an action-packed foray into history, Shakespeare's work and Elizabethan cooking, while being pursued by the unsavoury Crayfish brothers, all in the hopes of discovering the "jewel" and finding Lord Lane, hopefully alive.

Neil Flambé and the Bard's Banquet is a full serving of epicurean delights, that infuses a mystery with history, action with education–do your homework, Neil!–and fromage with farce.  And the punning and word play is wonderfully inventive and flavourful! 

"So since food and Shakespeare are the themes of the day right now, I wondered what Shakespeare would call his plays if he were also a chef!" (pg. 212)

...

"Measuring Spoon for Measuring Spoon!"

"The Taming of the Stew!"

"Romeo and Omelet!"

"Twelfth Bite!"

"A Midsummer's Light Cream!"

"The Merchant of Venison!" (pg. 213)

The solution to the mystery is never, never evident, unless you are a scholar of food, Shakespeare and word play, and perhaps not even then.  It takes an assortment of characters, some sweeter than others, to separate the clues, then blend them together into something that is both recognizable, palatable and delicious. Kevin Sylvester does this easily in Neil Flambé and the Bard's Banquet, perhaps his most bountiful Neil Flambé Caper to date.  

  *  *  *  *  *  

Yes, I loved Neil Flambé and the Bard's Banquet but I must share with you a brief Twitter conversation I had with author Kevin Sylvester about the end of the book.  I hope that, if my review doesn't get this book into your hands or into your school, this might.

You'll need to read this book to see what I mean, and then we'll all have to wait for Book 6 for a more revealing answer.

Book Event: Cracking the Case with Kevin Sylvester (Toronto)

Join author and illustrator 

Kevin Sylvester

in celebrating the release of his newest and 

fifth book in his award-winning Neil Flambé series, 

Neil Flambé and the Bard’s Banquet

by Kevin Sylvester

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

978-1-48141-0-380

320 pp.

Ages 8-12

January, 2015

for a murder-mystery writing workshop

 (set in the kitchen of Wanda’s Pie-in-the-Sky Bakery)

and 

a guided walk & scavenger hunt in Kensington Market

for writers aged 8-12 

starting at the 

Lillian H. Smith Library 

on 

Saturday March 28, 2015 

from 1 - 3 p.m.

Space is limited.

Tickets (a steal at $5) are available at Eventbrite here

__________________________________________

______________________

The Launch Party 

is open to the public

and will begin at 3 p.m.

including a reading and autographing of 

Neil Flambé and the Bard's Banquet

Full details here

Neil Flambé and the Tokyo Treasure

Written and illustrated by Kevin Sylvester

Simon & Schuster

978-1-4424-4288-7

352 pp.

Ages 8-12

October, 2012

In Kevin Sylvester's fourth installment in his Neil Flambé Capers, Neil Flambé has gone manga, courtesy of his cousin, partner and sous-chef, Larry, who has been collaborating online with illustrator Hiro Takoyaki. Their comic, The Chef, starring our young gourmet prodigy, has even been offered a book deal.  So Larry is off to Tokyo and leaves Gary, the shabby bike courier, as his replacement.

As unconventional and careless as Gary may be, his Aboriginal heritage helps bring the restaurant, Chez Flambé, a new reputation as the place to go for seafood cuisine, and Neil almost prefers Gary to Larry's antics.  But when news comes that Larry and Hiro have been killed in a storm at sea, Neil is devastated.  That is, until he notes an almost inconspicuous change in the online comic which Neil takes as a message that Larry is alive.  So Neil arranges to participate in a series of kitchen duels in Japan so he'd have an excuse to search for Larry.  Unfortunately, the kitchen duels in which Neil agrees to participate are organized by Matsumoro Nori, a heartless mega-billionaire who makes his money illegally, even peddling in endangered species. 

In Tokyo, Neil competes against Nori's enslaved chef, Kong, while risk-taking judges play Russian roulette with their own lives.  Between rounds of haiku deciphering, ingredient searching and death-defying cooking, Neil works with his friends detective Nakamura, Isabella Tortellini and her chaperone/bodyguard Jones to locate Larry.  Ultimately, the group must discretely unravel the puzzle of an ancient scroll, evade ninjas, and manoeuvre a submarine, all within the sensual experience that is Japan.  The spices, the scents, the landscape, the people, the landscape - all enrich the adventure and mystery in Neil Flambé and the Tokyo Treasure.

If possible, Neil Flambé and the Tokyo Treasure may be Kevin Sylvester's best yet.  And, considering the fact that the first three Neil Flambé books (Neil Flambé and the Marco Polo Murders, Key Porter, 2010; Neil Flambé and the Aztec Abduction, Key Porter, 2011; Neil Flambé and the Crusader's Curse, Simon & Schuster, 2012) have all been nominated for Silver Birch Fiction awards, the first volume winning the award in 2011, that's astoundingly high praise.  Neil is growing into himself (that sounds rather painful, doesn't it?), becoming less arrogant and more compassionate, and Larry has become more sure of himself and even more prolific in his punny ways (earning this volume a place in my upcoming WordPlay book list).  And with the addition of quirky Gary and unethical gourmand Nori, Neil Flambé and the Tokyo Treasure is a bountiful buffet where dessert is the main course.

Neil Flambé Camp Day: July 4, 5, 10, 12

Here's a different kind of camp for this summer!

Cartooning

Story-telling

Cooking (and eating, too)

with

Kevin Sylvester

author and illustrator of 

Neil Flambé and the Crusader's Curse

Neil Flambé and the Aztec Abduction

Neil Flambé and the Marco Polo Murders

Game Day: Meet the People Who Make it Happen

Sports Hall of Weird

Gold Medal for Weird 
Splinters

on 
Wednesday, July 4

Thursday, July 5

Tuesday, July 10

Thursday, July 12, 2012 

from 9:00 to 4:00 pm

at  Blue Heron Books

62 Brock Street West

Uxbridge, Ontario

 (northeast of Toronto)

Details and registration through The Blue Heron Books 

Do it soon to avoid disappointment!

Neil Flambé and the Crusader's Curse: Book Launch

The first of the Neil Flambé Capers

 won the 2011 Silver Birch Fiction award.

The second is nominated for 

a 2012 Silver Birch Fiction award

 and just won the District School Board 

of Niagara's own Silver Birch award.

Want to check out the newest, just released Neil Flambé Caper?

Join 

author and illustrator Kevin Sylvester 

on Saturday, May 12, 2012 

from 10:00 to 12:00 pm

at the Northern District Library

40 Orchard View Blvd. 

(one block north of Yonge and Eglinton)

Toronto

for the launch of  

Neil Flambé and the Crusader's Curse

Kevin Sylvester will talk with young readers and sign copies of his new book.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Learn How to Draw Neil Flambé

While waiting for your chance to see Kevin Sylvester, check out this wonderful video that teaches you how to draw Neil Flambé.

 

Uploaded by  SimonSchusterCanada on March 19, 2012 

to YouTube

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Still MORE Neil Flambé!

Kevin Sylvester and his publisher, Simon & Schuster, 

have a great promotion called 

Take Neil Flambé into the wild!

 

Print out your own Flat Neil Flambé, 

cut him out, take him somewhere and photograph him.  

Then send your photo to audrey@simonandschuster.ca 

to add your photo to Neil's photo album!

See where others have taken Neil Flambé into the Wild already. Kevin Sylvester even took Neil to China on a recent trip. 

Neil Flambé and the Crusader's Curse

Written and illustrated by Kevin Sylvester

Simon & Schuster Books for Young People

978-1-44244-408-9

291 pp.

Ages 8-14

2012

It's not easy to empathize with Neil Flambé, teen chef and Vancouver restaurateur: he's precocious, arrogant and haughty.  How he ever got his cousin, Larry, to partner with him in the restaurant business or young perfumier Isabella Tortellini to become enamoured with him is beyond comprehension.  But, when his culinary skills and his extraordinary sense of smell (he is called The Nose, after all) seem to fail him, especially when hosting a group of food critics who send back their food or get food poisoning, those around him begin to worry.  After the setbacks Kevin Sylvester documented in Neil Flambé and the Marco Polo Murders (Key Porter, 2010) and Neil Flambé and the Aztec Abduction (Key Porter, 2011), Neil has had to refurbish Chez Flambé with new appliances, cutlery, furniture, heating/cooling, etc.  He should be in culinary nirvana, amazing everyone with his gifts, but now, on his fifteenth birthday, he's apprehensive and confused.  Something is very wrong.

Of course, the reader is privy to a series of historical episodes, starting in the 1200's, in which an ancestral Flambé chef (seems they were always great chefs) is prohibited from cooking but continues to create dishes using unlikely ingredients (e.g., seagull, tree bark, narwhal) and recording the recipes in a notebook of parchment.  History shows that, through time, many Flambés have been cursed.

Of course, the Nose knows no curse.  All he knows is that his glorious dishes now taste worse than sawdust and the restaurant's re-opening is doomed to fail.  Then Neil's life seems to flip out of the proverbial frying pan and into the fire: the safe with his recipes is stolen; a new restaurant, Carrion, is slated to open across the street; Greta Carbo from the Health Department shuts the restaurant down; and computer wiz and rival, Stanley Picón, with computer Deep Blue Cheese (DBC) challenges Neil to a cooking duel.  Luckily, Neil does have allies: Larry, Isabella, her bodyguard Jones, his mentor Angel Jícama, food critic Jean-Claude Chili, and police inspector Sean Nakamura.  With some clever sleuthing, innovative gastronomy, a little travel and even some charity, Neil and his associates discover a plot cooked up to flambé his reputation and his restaurant.

Kevin Sylvester has created a winning character in Neil Flambé. (Speaking of winning, did you know Neil Flambé and the Marco Polo Murders won the 2011 Silver Birch Fiction Award and Neil Flambé and the Aztec Abduction is nominated for the 2012 Silver Birch Fiction Award?) Of course, Neil is not necessarily likeable (his arrogance tends to rule his personality) but he is growing up and learning to get along better with people (hence his proliferating entourage).  All Kevin Sylvester's characters are quirky and rich with life, even those who only appear in a single caper.  There are no two-dimensional stereotypical players in these plots.  In fact, the plots which may seem directional (i.e., problem to solution) are quite rich, teeming with red herrings and subplots and sub-subplots, perfect for a younger reading audience.  What will always endear the Neil Flambé Capers to readers, as it does here, is the nutty humour of the narrator and the characters.  It is often so subtle,  just a play on words (e.g., "..humming now, a little ditty DBC liked to call 'Happiness Is a Warm Bun - an Ode to John Lemon.'"; pg. 63), that I wondered if all readers "get" it.  But, if you check out some of the book trailers made by enthusiastic young readers of the Neil Flambé Capers and attend a Festival of Trees™ celebration with thousands of cheering readers, you'll know that they "get" it and they love it.  We all do.