'In a banqueting hall lined with mahogany panels and lit with chandeliers, in the august surroundings of the Union League, an imposing civil war-era building that occupies an entire block of Philadelphia, about 100 men and women are sitting down to a very good lunch. The starter of squash soup is followed by chicken breast smothered in parsley sauce with creamed potatoes, and a rich cheesecake. But as I’m tucking into the dessert, a woman at my table leans over to me and says: "I’d go easy on that, if I were you. It may not agree with the presentation.'
'The comment is puzzling. But when the plates are cleared away, coffee served, and the real business of the lunch gets under way, it quickly becomes clear what she means.'
'The presentation begins with a giant photograph projected on to a screen a few feet away from my table. It shows a woman lying on her back, wearing a blue sweatshirt, her head turned slightly to one side. Her face has become a strange shade of purple. Blood has congealed around her nose and mouth and a pool of it has collected behind her tussled ginger hair.'
'The blow-up of the dead woman, and the cheesecake now sitting heavily in my stomach, make decidedly awkward companions.'
'This is the monthly lunch of one of the world’s most exclusive clubs that, as its motto – Cuisine & Crime Solving – suggests, is devoted to the twin obsessions of food and murder. And unlike me, the members are well accustomed to the peculiar combination of fine food and grizzly gore.
The assembled gourmands include some of the best detective brains in America and from across the globe – public prosecutors, FBI profilers, murder detectives, forensic scientists and artists, psychologists and anthropologists, security consultants and coroners. At my table, there is a woman who specialises in forensic anthropology (the analysis of human bones) at the Mütter museum, Philadelphia’s famous collection of medical oddities (she was the one who warned me about the cheesecake), a leading forensic toxicologist and an authority on ritualistic murders and mutilations.'
'They are members of the Vidocq Society, a network of detectives that not only acts as a social meeting place, bringing members and their guests together on the third Thursday of every month, but also as a sort of giant game of Cluedo, pitting their enormous collective wealth of forensic and sleuthing expertise against some of the 100,000 murders that remain unsolved in America today. Between them, they come from 17 states across America and 11 countries. It’s like seating Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Inspector Morse, Jessica Fletcher, Kurt Wallander and Kojak in front of a sumptuous meal, presenting them with a cold case that needs an injection of new thinking, and watching the sparks fly.'
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