"A playful book, full of fun and games. There is so much pleasure to be had from Hamilton-Paterson's delight in language and wicked way with unreliable narrators. . . . The book's effect is achieved almost entirely through the comic magnetism of a single character."-"The Times Literary Supplement" "A skillful, highly original writer. . . . The elegant language, witty asides and vivid observations are memorable."-"The Literary Review" "I'm bowled over by the sheer imaginative brilliance of the man."-Barry Humphries "I love his elegant and intensely evocative style: strangeness lifts off his pages like a rare perfume."-J.G. Ballard "A work of comic genius."-"The Independent" "A wonderfully rich alloy of sub-Wildean witticisms and nonsense, "Cooking with Fernet Branca" had me laughing out loud and uproariously."-Ian Thomson, "Sunday Telegraph" Gerald Samper, an effete English snob, has his own private hilltop in Tuscany, where he wiles away his time working as a ghostwriter for celebrities and inventing wholly original culinary concoctions-including ice cream made with garlic and the bitter, herb-based liqueur of the book's title. Gerald's idyll is shattered by the arrival of Marta, on the run from a crime-riddled former soviet republic. A series of hilarious misunderstandings brings this odd couple into ever closer and more disastrous proximity. James Hamilton-Paterson's first novel, "Gerontius," won the Whitbread Award. He is an acclaimed author of nonfiction books, including "Seven-Tenths," "Three Miles Down," and "Playing with Water," He currently lives in Italy.