Chasing Chiles

Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail
authors: Kurt Michael Friese, Kraig Kraft, Gary Paul Nabhan
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing (March 16, 2011)
ARC read courtesy of Amazon Vine program
1/5 stars

In Chasing Chiles, a chef, an agroecologist and an ethnobotanist take a year long trip to search out the rarest and best peppers.  The book is a nonfiction account of their trip, with each chapter focusing on a particular chile pepper and interspersed with their interpretation of global warming's effect on that pepper.

The book vacillates between an unnamed first person narrator (which one of the three?!?) and a third person point of view.  The anecdotes described are not interesting. The heavily didactic climate change message is weakened by the lack of true research and credibility of the authors.  The overall writing style is a mess, and would have benefited from some honest editing.

Over all, this is not the unique and interesting adventure it was advertised to be, but rather a nearly unreadable attempt at scientific discussion.

Note: This is my opinion; on Amazon, 38% of the reviews were 5 stars.