In the cold darkness, sensing a rare hint of nourishment, they lie delirious for something delicious to eat.

A mouth-watering delight for gourmets of crime mystery stories. The last case in the distinguished career of Commissionaire Du Gui is a humdinger with help coming from an unusual source.

A host of celebrity chefs have disappeared without a trace leaving the Metropolitan Police baffled and the British public outraged so forcing a mistrusted political establishment to react. On the brink of retirement, Commissionaire Du Gui, the renowned debonair master crime solver of the macabre, gets a call to go to London to act as an informal advisor. Mistrust abounds as the Met high command repudiate his help and the elusive investigator ploughs his own path. Can the freethinking Frenchman, without treading on the toes of a flummoxed New Scotland Yard, save the day?

Five chefs were missing, three males and two females. In the bizarre times of today, it was not beyond the realms of possibility that a new health lobby extremist group had decided it was time for drastic action to stop the rise in obesity; maybe even, epigenetic preventive health warriors out to protect yet unborn innocents from the habits of unthinking future parents. With the heartlands of the chefs as far afield as London, Cornwell, Yorkshire, Ireland and Scotland, the investigation had a lot of ground to cover in this post-Brexit scenario. The missing could be held up north in remote heather-covered hills, or in the southwest, imprisoned in a disused tin mine. Elsewhere, in the land of the white rose, miles upon miles of underground caverns existed beneath the green rolling hills, and in the capital, the fashion for cellar extensions created the possibility of incarceration in a dungeon.

Using all the scientific and technical know-how at their disposal, the Met are left to follow arduous methodological policing procedures as the seemingly unflappable Du Gui and his pressganged motley band of helpers snake through fractured social strata in the hope of finding the evasive breakthrough that will lead to a successful conclusion. Upturning every stone on the way, the discovery of a high incidence of disappearing youngsters is discovered but does this have anything to do with the case? Meanwhile, far away from the trials and tribulations engulfing the spooked world of celebrity life, lying back from a narrow street on the edge of a sleepy Hertfordshire village, in a large house with a nice-looking surrounding garden, a soiree for prizing winning guests may help to solve the mystery.