The Reluctant Cannibals is a darkly humorous exploration of how a complete devotion to food can have unforeseen and shocking consequences. A quirky novel set in the evocative setting of Oxford University.

Blurb

When a group of food-obsessed academics at Oxford University form a secret dining society, they happily devote themselves to investigating exotic and forgotten culinary treasures. Until a dish is suggested that takes them all by surprise.

Professor Arthur Plantagenet has been told he has a serious heart problem and decides that his death should not be in vain. He sets out his bizarre plan in a will, that on his death, tests the loyalty of his closest friends, the remaining members of this exclusive dining society.

A dead Japanese diplomat, police arrests and charges of grave robbing. These are just some of the challenges these culinary explorers must overcome in tackling gastronomy’s ultimate taboo: cannibalism.

Ian Flitcroft studied medicine at Oxford University, and then went on to complete a D.Phil in Neurophysiology. During these 9 years, he started developing a fascination with all things culinary and on finishing his doctorate, gained dining rights at Pembroke College as a John Lockett Memorial Scholar.

Ian has travelled around the world twice (once in each direction) and sampled many of the world’s strangest foods en-route from snakes and scorpions, to a soup in Thailand that required all his anatomical knowledge to deduce its contents. Ian is a long term member of the Slow Food Movement in Ireland, a collector of old culinary-related books and an avid cook and wine collector. Ian now works as a consultant eye surgeon in Dublin, where he has lived for over 10 years. Ian is a contributor to the New Scientist Magazine and the best-selling book Do Polar Bears Get Lonely. Ian writes an award-winning blog Journey to Starlight, which has been made into a graphic novel to be published in the USA in 2013.