New York: Harper & Row, (1987) dj. Hardcover first edition - The author's third novel described by Publisher's Weekly as "almost a brilliant book." In it, Gilbert and Olive, two oddballs who run a in a factory district of London, find a newborn baby left under a table. Frank grows up to be a remarkably normal youth who has absorbed Gilbert's fascination for cooking and eating. After Olive dies unexpectedly, Gilbert persuades Frank and Veronica to join him in an adventure that reunites him with an old crony, Sam Pilchard who runs a hotel in remote Bilharzia, a village deep in West Africa. They survive their perilous journey to Bilharzia, but discover that Sam has lied in his letters: the hotel has plenty of nothing. It is a rotting, dank mess.. .264 pp. ISBN: 0-060390867.