Gabriel Lightfoot is the executive chef of the once-thriving
Imperial Hotel in London. Pumped by his backers as a future star-chef,
Gabe has a secret partnership to open his own restaurant, and plans to
marry his gorgeous lounge-singing girlfriend. But then Yuri, a porter,
is found dead in the hotel basement, and things start to unravel for
poor Gabe after he meets Lena, a young prostitute from Belarus who is
somehow connected to Yuri. The novel lacks the gritty violence of Rawi
Hage’s Cockroach or Stephen Frears’ film Dirty Pretty Things (or the
comedy of Ali’s Booker-winning debut novel Brick Lane), which expose
the secret, ignored lives of immigrant service workers in large,
anonymous cities, and Gabe lacks the raw passion associated with
celebrity chefs like blowhard Gordon Ramsey or saintly Jamie Oliver. As
commentary there’s little here, but the book is entertaining, thanks to
Ali’s sharp, observational writing.
This article appears in Sep 10-16, 2009.