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Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Bourdain, A. | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Author Notes
Anthony Bourdain was born in New York City on June 25, 1956. He graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1978. He wrote numerous nonfiction books including Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, The Nasty Bits, A Cook's Tour, No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach, Medium Raw, and Appetites: A Cookbook. He also wrote several works of fiction including the graphic novel Get Jiro! and the comic Anthony Bourdain's Hungry Ghosts. He was the host of several television shows including A Cook's Tour, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, The Layover, and Parts Unknown. He committed suicide on June 8, 2018 at the age of 61.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
First-time author Bourdain presents a savory portion of gangster tartare spiced with salty mobspeak, coked-up chefs, wild entrepreneurs and foul-mouthed feds, served up in the colorful ambience of Manhattan's Little Italy. The FBI is using a former dentist to open and run a restaurant in a sting operation designed to catch 280-pound loan shark ``Sally Wig'' Patera-a crazed mafioso assigned to do the Don's dirty work. The deluded dentist thinks he really runs the Dreadnaught Grill and blows FBI cash on dumb marketing schemes instead of paying Sally's dues and vig. Meanwhile, Sally's nephew, Tommy Pagano, sous chef at the Dreadnaught, who loathes both his uncle and mob life, still feels loyal to the Family and so gives Sally after-hours use of the kitchen to ``talk some business.'' But Tommy isn't happy when Sally and Skinny di Milito-who strips naked before his hits to cut down on blood-spatter cleanup-kill a fellow mobster and cut up the body with the chef's knife. Though the FBI pressures Tommy hard to sell out his uncle, he stays loyal, at least until the restaurant, the chef and his cooking career are threatened by Sally and Skinny, pushing him into unexpected action. The cast of this dark-humored, street-smart novel romps through Greenwich Village and Little Italy on a testosterone high in a perfect sendup of macho mobsters and feebs alike, while the kitchen antics reveal a real love for-and knowledge of-cooking, including a mouth-watering recipe for Portuguese Seafood Chowder, complete with squid, lobster, swordfish and cherrystone clams. Major ad/promo. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Manhattan chef-turned-fiction-writer Bourdain pens a first novel about murder and the Mob that makes a fair appetizer but no main course. Tommy is the second chef at the Dreadnaught Grill. His father was a made-guy with the Mob, but Tommy has managed to keep clear of any ``family'' entanglements. Harvey, who owns the Dreadnaught, owes big money to Tommy's uncle, a hit man named Sally who's also a loan shark. Harvey is weeks behind on his interest payments, with Sally applying lots of muscle. What Sally doesn't know, however, is that the Dreadnaught is a federal sting operation designed to snare racketeers like him. Sally approaches Tommy for a ``favor'': He wants to use the restaurant as a meeting place. Tommy eventually agrees, only to watch Sally and a friend murder and then dismember a man. Now Tommy is in way deep, and just in time for the feds to take a serious interest in him. They want his testimony on the murder, but Tommy can't narc on a relative--especially one who's a homicidal animal. Pressured by both sides, he also feels guilty over the murder. All of this could be compelling enough--if the book wasn't a catalogue of first-novel mistakes. The dialogue is usually flabby (``I wanna follow him,'' says a detective watching the Dreadnaught. ``Maybe he's runnin' an errand,'' says his partner. ``Maybe he is. Maybe he's runnin' an errand for Uncle Sally.'' ``Maybe he's runnin' out for a head of lettuce''); and, meanwhile, the plot gets sidetracked into very secondary concerns, like the head chef's struggle with heroin and entrance into a methadone program. Worst of all, though, the ending is a big disappointment: too easy, and totally anticlimactic. Great descriptions of food. But despite some very graphic violence, not as sharp, hard, or mean as the genre demands.
Booklist Review
Bourdain's tongue-in-cheek wiseguy novel features an up-and-coming young chef who owes his position in a New York restaurant to his uncle, a Mob collector-hit man who has loaned a considerable sum to the restaurant owner. Mobster Sal the Wig and Tommy, the sous-chef, are both unaware that state and federal agents have set up the owner, Harvey, as a plant to uncover extortion, murder, and whatever other criminal activities occur in Harvey's presence or the eaterie. The combination of fine food and sordid slayings makes an irresistible novel, but perhaps not one to savor while dining. --Denise Perry Donavin