In the kitchen, Monica Ali, Isabelle Maillet

After the extraordinary success of "Brick Lane," Monica Ali plunges us into the melting pot of a major London restaurant's kitchens. Deep, bittersweet, an ambitious work that depicts the struggles of a society attached to its traditions, confronted with a new world it doesn't understand.

Head chef at the Imperial Hotel, a palace no longer quite living up to its former glory, Gabriel Lightfoot must contend daily with a cosmopolitan and boisterous team, a singer girlfriend who is questioning their relationship, and a sick father who leaves him messages as laconic as they are guilt-inducing on his answering machine.

A death shatters his fragile balance: the body of an employee is found in the restaurant's basement. A solitary, anonymous death, among these interchangeable immigrant workers. Suddenly, Gabriel realizes that his kitchens hide many secrets: all kinds of trafficking, prostitution, blackmail, daily violence...

Lena, an Eastern European woman mysteriously linked to this death, appears. Irresistibly drawn to this woman in distress, Gabriel makes a decision that will challenge everything he has believed in until now...