Three Crime Novels by Anthony Bourdain - (Paperback)

About the Book

Rediscover the legendary Anthony Bourdain through his three wild crime novels full of criminal cooks, bloody kitchens, and extra-sharp knives.

Book Synopsis

"DELICIOUSLY DEPRAVED" -The New York Times on Bone in the Throat

Rediscover the legendary Anthony Bourdain through his three wild crime novels full of criminal cooks, bloody kitchens, and extra-sharp knives.

It was the seedy 1990s, and Anthony Bourdain was an anonymous headband-clad chef in New York City. Sweating over gas ranges and mouthing off with the criminals-turned-prep cooks working the line, he loved the camaraderie of cleaving beef bones and pilfering booze with the troublemakers of the world. It was all part of a good kitchen, and to him, it was art.

Bourdain's first book, Bone in the Throat, was pulled from the entrails of this world. The breakneck mafia caper follows a wannabe chef named Tommy who, like Bourdain, is fresh out of culinary school in Manhattan. He settles for a stint at a red sauce joint in Little Italy, unaware that the restaurant is in deep trouble with the mob-and that now he is too. After publication, Bourdain spent a year in St. Martin to "straighten himself out." Then came Gone Bamboo, a hysterical crime thriller that follows Henry, a CIA-trained assassin who retires to St. Martin after a botched murder job-but scores aren't settled that easily. It was only then that Bourdain published Kitchen Confidential, the now-canonical book that made him a legend. But before cleaning up his act for good, Bourdain had one final job: to write The Bobby Gold Stories, his last ever novel, which follows a once-scrawny Bobby as he does eight years in prison and comes out a hardened brute. When Bobby takes a job at a mobbed-up club, he falls for a fiery line cook named Nikki who brings more trouble than even he knows how to handle.

Full of knife-slinging chefs, fast-talking criminals, and the kitchens that harbor them all, these books reveal Bourdain's mind before his fame. "You can find him, I think, in these early novels" (Eater), and he's Bourdain as you've never known him before.

Review Quotes

"Bourdain's best writing can make food lovers quiver like raw fish." --The Cleveland Plain Dealer

"A Manhattan tale with Elmore Leonard flavor . . . Bourdain cooks as a writer." --The New York Times on The Bobby Gold Stories

"The chef wields his pen with the same murderously winning flair as he does his knives." --Kirkus Reviews, on The Bobby Gold Stories

"A new master of the wiseass crime comedy." --Publishers Weekly on Gone Bamboo

"Bourdain's prose is utterly riveting, swaggering with stylish machismo." --New York

"Delightful... This is a guy who knows how to spin a yarn: these stories, starring an ex-con, a retired government assassin and (yes) a chef, are pure gold - not merely mostly forgotten curiosities written by a guy who's famous for something else entirely, but exciting, entertaining mysteries that demand to be read simply because they're so damned good." --Winnipeg Free Press

"Before Anthony Bourdain became Anthony Bourdain, he was writing crime novels about cooks... Bourdain was always a writer, and he understood early that food was one of the best ways to reveal people... Food becomes a way to write about ambition, class, masculinity, addiction, resentment and tenderness without having to announce that's what he's doing." --Salon.com

"Anthony Bourdain's Three Crime Novels is a wonderfully rough-edged reminder that his storytelling talents extended far beyond food and television... Bourdain's voice gives the stories their spark: sharp, funny, gritty, and completely unpolished in the best possible way. The result is crime fiction with real personality, especially for readers who enjoy dark humor alongside suspense... a fascinating glimpse at the writer Bourdain was becoming." --Tulsa Book Review

About the Author

Anthony Bourdain, the renowned chef, author, and raconteur, is best known for having traveled the globe on his TV show Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. Bourdain authored the New York Times bestselling Kitchen Confidential and Medium Raw; A Cook's Tour; the collection The Nasty Bits; and the New York Times bestselling cookbook, Appetites. He wrote for The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Times of London. He was the host of the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning docuseries Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown on CNN, and Emmy award-winning No Reservations, among others. He died in 2018.