A love story wrapped in a murder mystery， served up as a laugh-out-loud satire of the trendy urban restaurant scene. Jeremy Papier， the new Alice Waters of the Vancouver food world， is fast becoming known for his radically rear-guard cuisine--tradition-steeped dishes that celebrate the bounty of the Pacific Northwest. His restaurant， The Monkey s Paw Bistro， is always fully booked， but， unfortunately， it s more an artistic triumph than a reasonably run business. Far too costly ever to turn a profit， it is kited by Jeremy on dozens of maxed-out credit cards. An old family friend， Dante Beale， owner of a worldwide chain of cookie-cutter coffeehouses， is willing to bail the restaurant out-- for the price of sole control. It s a business proposition made in hell， one strenuously opposed by Jeremy s pretty young sous chef， the incorruptible， plainspoken Jules. Jeremy s problems deepen when his eccentric-academic father--a "participatory anthropologist" half Joseph Mitchell， half Joe Gould--loses himself among the homeless in Vancouver s Stanley Park. He lives as they do (he s especially adept at catching and roasting sparrows) and soon involves Jeremy in researching a "cold case" crime， the true-life murder of two children slain in the park in the early 1970 s. Timothy Taylor--the writer who "everyone in the Canadian literary community today is talking about" (Globe and Mail)--weaves together the disparate， brightly colored strands of his story with unerring skill and unflagging comic invention. Stanley Park， already a Canadian best seller， is a comic novel of the first order--and a memorable literary debut.