Product Description

All is not well at the Dreadnought Grill...the chef has a smack habit, the owner has been set up by the FBI and in the midst of this, the sous-chef Tommy is just trying to do his job.As depraved as it is hilarious, Anthony Bourdain's first novel is street smart and spiced with drugged-up savvy, foul-mouthed feds and salty mob speak.With a cast of unforgettables like the hitman who covers himself in clingfilm to avoid leaving fingerprints and a plot with more twists than a plate of spaghetti, "Bone in the Throat" rocks through the streets of Manhattan at a blistering pace.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #115711 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 332 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
There is one thing in the world that Tony Pagano cares about passionately--learning to make great, food under the guidance of a great, if drug-addicted, chef. But it is not as easy as that--the FBI are never convinced that being part of a crime family means only being their relation, nor is Tony's uncle Salvatore "Sally Wig" Patera. It was Sally Wig who got Tony his current job, and even a favoured nephew owes the odd favour back--when Sally and his pals borrow Tony's kitchen to kill and dismember an enemy, they ruin the chef's best knife and Tony's peace of mind. What makes A Bone in the Throat such an effective gangland thriller is that its hero is as much at an angle to the universe as the posturing bullies he is trying to avoid; he cares about family loyalty, of course he does, but his ultimate obsessive loyalty is to great cuisine. Snappy dialogue and convincing outbreaks of quite horrid violence make this an intelligent thriller of Brooklyn and New York skullduggery; it is Tony and his yearning to be free to cook that makes it memorable. --Roz Kaveney

Review
"* 'Gangster fiction to feast on.' - Independent * 'Raw and cooking. Rare and well-done.' - AA Gill * 'A superb tale of violence and backbiting set in the seething testosterone-heavy company of a crew of New York cooks, and simply towers head, shoulders and upper torso above everything else.' - GQ * 'Wonderful fun, a perfect book to read at the beach.' - Michael Crichton, New York Times Book Review * 'A recipe for a very good read.' - Sunday Telegraph * 'Sharp, funny... if it's gangster rap you want to read then Bourdain is your man.' - Express"

Michael Crichton, New York Times Book Review
Wonderful fun, a perfect book to read at the beach.

Customer Reviews

Bourdain's Breezy and Gory Debut
Several years before hitting the nonfiction bestseller lists with Kitchen Confidential and A Cook's Tour, former chef Bourdain penned two crime novels. The first of these opens as follows: "Two-hundred-and-eighty-pound Salvatore Pitera, in a powder-blue jogging suit and tinted aviator glasses, stepped out of Frank's Original Pizza onto Spring Street. He had a slice of pizza in one hand, too hot to eat, and he was blowing on it as he waddled through traffic."

If you like that sentence, you'll probably like this breezy and very gory debut which weaves cuisine and wiseguys into a satisfying little crime novel. The story concerns Brooklyn sous-chef Tommy, who is caught between mobster family members and the feds. All he wants to do is be left alone to cook, but people getting whacked, tortured, and dismembered keep interrupting him. Bourdain does a great job of both incorporating all his kitchen insider knowledge and the rhythm of mobster conversation and lingo into a fast moving pageturner.

This debut was closely followed by the much less satisfying Gone Bamboo, which picks up where this leaves off. Bourdain then turned to nonfiction, before returning to the crime genre with the brand new book The Bobby Gold Stories.

Raw meat.
Set in the Bronx and Brooklyn, this is a grisly and graphic story of mob murder, dismemberment, and torture, along with the businesses of protection, loansharking, and money laundering. Tommy Pagano, the sous-chef at a small restaurant, who was cared for as a child by his mob-connected uncle Sal Pitera, finds himself up to his prime rib in dangerous mob business when Sally wants payback. Sandwiched between bloodthirsty racketeers on one side and equally threatening and sinister investigators who want him to give up Sally and his "friends" on the other side, Tommy has more than ample reason to fear for his life.

Suspense and horror are leavened throughout by humor, which comes mainly from absurdities--a hitman standing naked while he dismembers a body in order to protect his clothes, a chef upset because someone used his kitchen knife instead of a boning knife, a mobster telling a hitman that his actions were "bush." This is primarily a fast-paced story of murder and mayhem, with humor on the side and lots of insights into the restaurant business. Local color, realistic-sounding (and often funny) wise-guy dialogue, an engaging main character with whom we sympathize, and investigators who are sometimes as venal as the men they investigate will keep you reading well into the night. Mary Whipple

A great starter.
Anthony Bourdain's first novel is a fresh take on the New York gangster novel. He draws on his own experiences as a chef, memorably described in Kitchen Confidential, to create engaging characters and some superb dialogue. The story of how Tommy, a young sous-chef, becomes entangled with some pretty unpleasant low lifes is funny and sometimes chilling. Sex, violence and some great food; all you need really.