The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs

An exquisitely paced black comedy. It has clever and funny things to say. There was a rumour that Welsh’s last book, Porno, was to be his last. You’ll be glad it wasn’t’ Evening Standard

Troubled Environmental Health Officer Danny Skinner is engaged on a quest to uncover what he refers to as 'the bedroom secrets of the master chefs'. He regards the unravelling of this classified information as the key to learning genetic facts about himself and the crippling compulsions that threaten to wreck his young life. The ensuing journey takes him from Europe's festival city of Edinburgh to the foodie capital of America, San Francisco. But the hard-drinking, womanising Skinner has a strange nemesis in the form of model-railway enthusiast Brian Kibby. It is his unfathomable, obsessive hatred of Kibby that takes over everything, threatening to destroy not only Skinner and his mission but also those he loves most dearly. When Kibby contracts a horrific and debilitating mystery virus, Skinner understands that his destiny is inextricably bound to that of his hated rival, and he is faced with a terrible dilemma. The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs is a gothic parable about the great obsessions of our time: food, sex and minor celebrity, and is a brilliant examination of identity, male rivalry and the need to belong in the world.

Author Profile

Irvine Welsh is the author of several works of fiction, most recently Crime. He lives in Dublin.

Reviews

The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs is Welsh back on cracking, page-turning, stomach-churning, gut-busting form. You’ll whiz through it, in a good way,Irvine Welsh is in a class of his own…[his books have] a seething life in them that rivets attention and an inventiveness with story and language that continually amuses and amazes…The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs…shares the same roiling chorus of hard men, wee hoors, old jakeys and biddies as its predecessors, builds with the same logic of escalating perversity, and leaves one with the same reeling sensation of having got quite a bit more than one’s money’s worth,In the outrageous and exhilarating foul-mouthed book, Welsh once again uses the demonic to create serious comedy,The great liberation of Welsh’s writing is it’s ability to capture the lust for freedom…the most touching and beautiful of his writings…if her carries on like this he’ll start dragging the place [Scotland] back to the bloody enlightenment,This transitional phase in his life is has been mirrored by a new direction in Welsh’s writing as evinced by this new book, The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs. The novel is less visceral than his past work and is more in dialogue with Celtic writers such a Oscar Wilde than it is music, the form he has long claimed his inspiration,This is Welsh’s tightest narrative structure in some time, and a pleasing change of pace after his previous two novels…a carefully considered blend of three-dimensional realism and expertly judged modern gothic horror. Welsh is such a convincing writer that you never doubt his plot for a moment,Run along, buy the book, it’s very good indeed, better even than Trainspotting, so therefore Welsh’s best. It is an exquisitely paced black comedy. There was a rumour that Welsh’s last novel, Porno was to be his last. Well if this, instead, is his last he’s certainly gone out with a bang. But I hope it isn’t,Flickers with the dynamism, black humour and imaginative bravado that is Welsh at his best