Chew vol 1: Taster's Choice back

Ruminate on this: detective Tony Chu is a "Cibopath" which means he receives psychic impressions from whatever he eats - its history if you like. Rather off-putting seeing and/or feeling the final living moments of a large, juicy sirloin, I'd have thought. Imagine what you'd have to do to learn who dunnit to a murder victim!

That, unfortunately is precisely what Tony's forced to do now as part of the Special Crimes Unit of the Federal Government working for the most fault-finding boss you could imagine. Nor is that Layman's sole idea (some writers have made more out of less). Chicken is now legally off the menu following the Bird Flu fiasco, so there are underground cluck-easies everywhere. That's how we first encounter Chu - on a stake-out. But best of all was the gourmet food critic Amelia Mintz with whom Tony falls head over heels in love. She, you see, is a "Saboscrivner" which means that her reviews can communicate her mouth-watering meal so vividly and with such precision that her readers vicariously experience it too. For the first time, then, Tony can taste the best food in town without having to mentally visit the abattoir. The liberation of it all! But recently she's decided for whatever reason that she will only write about restaurants that would be closed down instantly by the Department of Health so instead of her fans salivating over her scribblings, there's been a mass outbreak of projectile vomiting!

These then are the sort of ingredients that Layman is using, but I'll leave you to discover the course it takes.