Bone in the Throat

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Characters Abound in Fantastic Mafia Story
Review: Let's Face it the gangster genre needed some help. Not since Steve Thayer's "Saint Mudd" has there been a solid mafia based novel. I stumbled upon Anthony Bourdain's and found his first novel, "Bone in the Throat" full of vivid characters that jump off the page, a story line that was very tight and not watered down, which also has a good solid pace.

The story revolves around Tommy Pagano who after losing his father due to mob ties, decides to try something else. Tommy refuses his Uncle Sal's offer to join the family business and chases down his dream of becoming a famous chef. Tommy however lands a job as a sous-chef at a restaurant, which his Uncle does business at. Tommy ends up doing one (against his better judgment) for his uncle and quickly finds himself in the middle of an FBI investigation. Tommy's friends, mainly Chef Ricard find themselves being pinched for information. Tommy faces hard time, and if he talks he knows what will happen next.

To find out what happens I strongly recommend picking up "Bone in the Throat". It is a true treat for those who enjoy mafia fiction. Even those who don't will enjoy the colorful characters, awesome dialogue and fast paced story.

Rating:
Summary: Bone in the Throat
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.

Rating:
Summary: searingly funny
Review: Ok, I'll can the bad cooking humor. This is a fun, fast read -- good situations, great ear for language, nicely spiced (sorry) with sex and violence -- and available in paperback. And, as a bonus, if you read this after "Kitchen Confidential" (as I did) you can have fun picking out what bits were based on Bourdain's own sordid adventures. What are you waiting for?

Rating:
Summary: Raw meat.
Review: 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 is 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.

Rating:
Summary: great read; true i am prejudiced;i'm in it,,,,,,,,,
Review: so what if the story takes place in a restaurant that i was the exec. chef and owner of and that i appear in the book as the character of the junklie chef... would love to hear others' opinions and the like... Tony has anohter book coming out shortly called "bamboo curtain." keep you eyes open and please respond to the writer care of me at [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Mildly entertaining.
Review: The best parts of the book are the semi-autobiographical elements which are probably lifted from the author's career as a chef. The convuluted plot includes dealings with the mafia, and ends pretty unsatisfactorily.

Where the author excels is entertaining the reader with tales about the sex, drugs, and criminal behavior, and he's only talking about the restaurant staff. He let's us in on the secrets behind how food is delivered to your table at dinner time.

For a better look behind the restaurant business, I recommend reading his non-fiction works Kitchen Confidential and A Cook's Tour.

Rating:
Summary: Mildly entertaining.
Review: The best parts of the book are the semi-autobiographical elements which are probably lifted from the author's career as a chef. The convuluted plot includes dealings with the mafia, and ends pretty unsatisfactorily.

Where the author excels is entertaining the reader with tales about the sex, drugs, and criminal behavior, and he's only talking about the restaurant staff. He let's us in on the secrets behind how food is delivered to your table at dinner time.

For a better look behind the restaurant business, I recommend reading his non-fiction works Kitchen Confidential and A Cook's Tour.

Rating:
Summary: Better get out of the kitchen
Review: We learn what a mise-en-place is and get a graphic description of cleaning a squid. As a matter of fact, we learn a lot about the restaurant business from purchasing to personnel to controlling cost. The author is a certified expert at this and the next time you go to a restaurant you probably look at it with different eyes (and leave a better tip).

But this book is supposed to be a mystery, and so it is - in a way. It is an absolutely hilarious sendup of small-time and small-brained mafia gangsters. From Sally the Wig to Charley Wagons to Skinny they act like the book tells them to: Got to follow the rules! No wonder it gets them into trouble. Only their methods of maiming and killing seems to be innovative.

This is a satire you don't want to miss.