Status
Available
Call number
Series
Genres
Collection
Publication
Insomniac Press (2000), Paperback, 272 pages
Description
A gay wedding gone bad. A missing groom. An unsullied reputation at risk. Enter Russell Quant - cute, gay, and a rookie private detective. With a nose for good wine and bad lies, Quant is off to France on his first big case. From the smudgy streets of Paris, he cajoles and sleuths his way to the pastel-colored promenade of Sanary-sur-Mer. Back in Saskatoon, Quant comes face-to-face with a client who may be the bad guy, a quarry who turns up in the most unexpected place, and a cast of colorful suspects: the vile sister, the best friend, the colleague, the ex-lover, the lawyer, the priest, the s
User reviews
LibraryThing member peonygoat
The first Russell Quant mystery. Russell Quant is a gay detective who works out of Saskatoon. A fun, light-hearted read.
LibraryThing member BallyMan
Amuse Bouche by Anthony Bidulka is quite a good mystery. It is set in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Russell Quant is a former cop turned PI. When Tom Osborn is a no-show at the altar, Russell is hired by the jilted groom, Harold Chavell, to find out why. Russell is off to Paris on his first big case to
The clues are well laid and the characters are an interesting crew I would like to see again. There were a couple of plot lines I found weak, but overall this is a great first mystery.
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follow Tom.The clues are well laid and the characters are an interesting crew I would like to see again. There were a couple of plot lines I found weak, but overall this is a great first mystery.
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LibraryThing member Darrol
I like this book. It does not try to do too much. Even the shootout at the end is understated. I like the friends that surround Russel Quant.
LibraryThing member richardderus
Rating: 3.5* of five
The Book Report: Harold Chevell, an A-list Saskatoonian gay man, has decided to marry his lover Tom in a private ceremony at their beautiful McMansion near the South Saskatchewan River. Trouble is, Tom's disappeared, and no one who knows the couple can resist speculating as to
Harold's instructions to Russell are specific and vague: Find Tom. Find out what happened. Go wherever you need to go. Money doesn't matter, Tom does. And Russell, being no one's fool, takes the job, the money, and the next flight out of small-prairie-city Saskatoon to the fleshpots of Paris!
Russell chases lead after lead, goes to the many and various places that Harold and Tom were to have gone on their honeymoon, and in the end, solves the mystery, though no one can claim to be happy about that.
My Review: Well well well! What have we here? A sexy-but-doesn't-know-it PI who is a) gay and 2) financially stable plus c) a dog-lover?! Sign me up! I'll be getting married just as soon as I can figure out how to liberate him from being fictional.
This is a first novel, and there are things that show that fact up. I don't think any of them, like small plot points that don't add up, or characters developed but not used much, are fatal to the pleasure of reading the book. The small Canadian prairie city of Saskatoon was, until this book hit my eyes, merely a snicker-inducing name on a map. Thanks to Bidulka's very amusing Irish-Ukrainian Russell, I now want to book a trip there (in the fall, winter sounds too cold and I hate summer no matter where I am) to view the fleshpots of Saskatchewan's second city. (There's a sentence I'd've bet you money I'd never have cause to write.)
What's next? A series of mysteries set in Skookumchuk, British Columbia? I hope not...I need *some* hilarious names to giggle at, and that's one of my all-time favorites.
The Book Report: Harold Chevell, an A-list Saskatoonian gay man, has decided to marry his lover Tom in a private ceremony at their beautiful McMansion near the South Saskatchewan River. Trouble is, Tom's disappeared, and no one who knows the couple can resist speculating as to
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why. Enter gay ex-Saskatoon cop Russell Quant, whose late uncle left him a legacy that has enabled him to start his own PI business. Harold's instructions to Russell are specific and vague: Find Tom. Find out what happened. Go wherever you need to go. Money doesn't matter, Tom does. And Russell, being no one's fool, takes the job, the money, and the next flight out of small-prairie-city Saskatoon to the fleshpots of Paris!
Russell chases lead after lead, goes to the many and various places that Harold and Tom were to have gone on their honeymoon, and in the end, solves the mystery, though no one can claim to be happy about that.
My Review: Well well well! What have we here? A sexy-but-doesn't-know-it PI who is a) gay and 2) financially stable plus c) a dog-lover?! Sign me up! I'll be getting married just as soon as I can figure out how to liberate him from being fictional.
This is a first novel, and there are things that show that fact up. I don't think any of them, like small plot points that don't add up, or characters developed but not used much, are fatal to the pleasure of reading the book. The small Canadian prairie city of Saskatoon was, until this book hit my eyes, merely a snicker-inducing name on a map. Thanks to Bidulka's very amusing Irish-Ukrainian Russell, I now want to book a trip there (in the fall, winter sounds too cold and I hate summer no matter where I am) to view the fleshpots of Saskatchewan's second city. (There's a sentence I'd've bet you money I'd never have cause to write.)
What's next? A series of mysteries set in Skookumchuk, British Columbia? I hope not...I need *some* hilarious names to giggle at, and that's one of my all-time favorites.
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LibraryThing member Condorena
I enjoy Anthony Bidulka and he gets better as his series progresses. His titles are wonderful, the stories interesting, the locales are a nice change of pace and I really have avoid time with the characters.
LibraryThing member Kaysbooks
Russell Quant, a private investigator, gets his first bigger assignment: tracking down the lover of a wealthy man who failed to show up to their wedding ceremony. Apparently the man fled to France, so off Russell goes. But instead of describing the search the readers gets a lot of chitchat about
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food, clichés about France, off-the-topic description. No wonder, that Russell looses track of Tom Osborn, the reader looses track of the story do, and that doesn´t change after his return home. There are still too much sideline descriptions and nearly fascinating discounters. In the end you are just glad to get it over with so that I couldn´t care who the killer was (logical but still far-fetched plot). And why does Russell have to be attracted to other men who are unreachable?? I got the impression as if Bidulka didn´t dare to dive into a real story. What a shame!! Show Less
LibraryThing member gypsysmom
I read Flight of Aquavit by Bidulka earlier this year but as it was the second book in his Russell Quant series I am delighted to have read the first installment. I thought this wasn't quite as good but it was certainly a fine read. Bidulka captures Saskatoon very well but I also enjoyed his
Russell has just celebrated his first year in business by wrapping up "The Case of the Missing Casserole" (neighbours to a Saskatoon woman in an Arizona RV park had taken her favourite casserole dish when they left and the woman hired Russell to track them down). It wasn't long though before his first really big case came along. He was hired by a prominent Saskatoon businessman to find his missing partner (and I don't mean business partner) who had left the man standing at the altar. This entailed following the missing groom to France where the one groom was taking the honeymoon that both of them were supposed to be on. Although Russell doesn't manage to find the missing man he does have some great meals, including his first encounter with amuse bouche, and visits some lovely spots. When he receives a message from the missing person that makes it clear he doesn't want to be found his client calls him off the case. Russell isn't quite done with his sleuthing and keeps on talking to people back in Saskatoon. Then when the missing man's body shows up in a vacation spot south of the city Russell is hired again to find out who killed him. There are plenty of red herrings but Quant has an epiphany that leads him to the murderer.
I hope that Quant finds a steady guy for himself. I was really hoping that Father Len, a Ukrainian Catholic priest and brother to the victim, was going to be the one but they are maintaining a platonic friendship in this book. I guess I'll just have to track down some of the other books to find out more about Quant's love life.
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descriptions of France where this case took him. I especially liked the sounds of Cliousclat situated in the Rhone Valley. Yet another spot for my bucket list!Russell has just celebrated his first year in business by wrapping up "The Case of the Missing Casserole" (neighbours to a Saskatoon woman in an Arizona RV park had taken her favourite casserole dish when they left and the woman hired Russell to track them down). It wasn't long though before his first really big case came along. He was hired by a prominent Saskatoon businessman to find his missing partner (and I don't mean business partner) who had left the man standing at the altar. This entailed following the missing groom to France where the one groom was taking the honeymoon that both of them were supposed to be on. Although Russell doesn't manage to find the missing man he does have some great meals, including his first encounter with amuse bouche, and visits some lovely spots. When he receives a message from the missing person that makes it clear he doesn't want to be found his client calls him off the case. Russell isn't quite done with his sleuthing and keeps on talking to people back in Saskatoon. Then when the missing man's body shows up in a vacation spot south of the city Russell is hired again to find out who killed him. There are plenty of red herrings but Quant has an epiphany that leads him to the murderer.
I hope that Quant finds a steady guy for himself. I was really hoping that Father Len, a Ukrainian Catholic priest and brother to the victim, was going to be the one but they are maintaining a platonic friendship in this book. I guess I'll just have to track down some of the other books to find out more about Quant's love life.
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LibraryThing member brianinseattle
I love a good mystery, and this is just that.
LibraryThing member gypsysmom
I read Flight of Aquavit by Bidulka earlier this year but as it was the second book in his Russell Quant series I am delighted to have read the first installment. I thought this wasn't quite as good but it was certainly a fine read. Bidulka captures Saskatoon very well but I also enjoyed his
Russell has just celebrated his first year in business by wrapping up "The Case of the Missing Casserole" (neighbours to a Saskatoon woman in an Arizona RV park had taken her favourite casserole dish when they left and the woman hired Russell to track them down). It wasn't long though before his first really big case came along. He was hired by a prominent Saskatoon businessman to find his missing partner (and I don't mean business partner) who had left the man standing at the altar. This entailed following the missing groom to France where the one groom was taking the honeymoon that both of them were supposed to be on. Although Russell doesn't manage to find the missing man he does have some great meals, including his first encounter with amuse bouche, and visits some lovely spots. When he receives a message from the missing person that makes it clear he doesn't want to be found his client calls him off the case. Russell isn't quite done with his sleuthing and keeps on talking to people back in Saskatoon. Then when the missing man's body shows up in a vacation spot south of the city Russell is hired again to find out who killed him. There are plenty of red herrings but Quant has an epiphany that leads him to the murderer.
I hope that Quant finds a steady guy for himself. I was really hoping that Father Len, a Ukrainian Catholic priest and brother to the victim, was going to be the one but they are maintaining a platonic friendship in this book. I guess I'll just have to track down some of the other books to find out more about Quant's love life.
Show More
descriptions of France where this case took him. I especially liked the sounds of Cliousclat situated in the Rhone Valley. Yet another spot for my bucket list!Russell has just celebrated his first year in business by wrapping up "The Case of the Missing Casserole" (neighbours to a Saskatoon woman in an Arizona RV park had taken her favourite casserole dish when they left and the woman hired Russell to track them down). It wasn't long though before his first really big case came along. He was hired by a prominent Saskatoon businessman to find his missing partner (and I don't mean business partner) who had left the man standing at the altar. This entailed following the missing groom to France where the one groom was taking the honeymoon that both of them were supposed to be on. Although Russell doesn't manage to find the missing man he does have some great meals, including his first encounter with amuse bouche, and visits some lovely spots. When he receives a message from the missing person that makes it clear he doesn't want to be found his client calls him off the case. Russell isn't quite done with his sleuthing and keeps on talking to people back in Saskatoon. Then when the missing man's body shows up in a vacation spot south of the city Russell is hired again to find out who killed him. There are plenty of red herrings but Quant has an epiphany that leads him to the murderer.
I hope that Quant finds a steady guy for himself. I was really hoping that Father Len, a Ukrainian Catholic priest and brother to the victim, was going to be the one but they are maintaining a platonic friendship in this book. I guess I'll just have to track down some of the other books to find out more about Quant's love life.
Show Less
LibraryThing member SharonMariaBidwell
A light amusing read with a likeable protagonist in the form of Russell Quant, private eye. There seem to be complaints that this isn’t a gay romance, but I never thought it was or should be, least not in the first book. Fast-paced entertainment. The ending for me, unfortunately, didn’t come as
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a surprise. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence (Shortlist — First Novel — 2004)
Language
Original publication date
2000-09-01
ISBN
1894663470 / 9781894663472
Local notes
OCLC = 38
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