Bone in the Throat

Anthony Bourdain

Dec 2008 · Bloomsbury Publishing USA

About this ebook

The acclaimed first novel by the New York Times bestselling author of Kitchen Confidential and host of Parts Unknown on CNN. A wildly funny, irreverent tale of murder, mayhem, and the mob.

When up-and-coming chef Tommy Pagana settles for a less than glamorous stint at his uncle's restaurant in Manhattan's Little Italy, he unwittingly finds himself a partner in big-time crime. And when the mob decides to use the kitchen for a murder, nothing Tommy learned in cooking school has prepared him for what happens next.

With the FBI on one side, and his eccentric wise-guy superiors on the other, Tommy has to struggle to do right by his conscience, and to avoid getting killed in the meantime.

In the vein of Prizzi's Honor, Bone in the Throat is a thrilling Mafia caper laced with entertaining characters and wry humor. This first novel is a must-have for fans of Anthony Bourdain's nonfiction.

Ratings and reviews

If you know anything about Tony, this novel is basically an over-imaginative, hastily-slung, hashing of Bourdain's early culinary career, served up extremely al dente on a rush order. The plot is intruiging enough, though somewhat cliché but the fairytale ending will leave you wondering as to where the author misplaced his testes for the last hundred pages or so. Still a better read than 50 Shades of Gay.

Kinda Like the movie 'Dinner Rush' A very relatable story at least for my part. It's more nostalgic enjoyment at this point though. It's a book for the old timers and the guys like me they taught (see: indoctrinated) while we were just young impressionable FNGs. I'd say it's insightful for those unaware of the daily mechanisms of a professional kitchen. A small one at least.

This book was so good I read it all in one sitting.

About the author

Chef and author Anthony Bourdain wrote the New York Times bestselling memoirs Kitchen Confidential, Medium Raw, and A Cook's Tour; the collection The Nasty Bits; the novels Bone in the Throat, The Bobby Gold Stories, and Gone Bamboo; the biography Typhoid Mary; and the cookbooks Appetites and Les Halles Cookbook.

Bourdain was the host of the Emmy and Peabody Award–winning docuseries Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown on CNN, and prior to that hosted the Emmy Award–winning No Reservations and The Layover on the Travel Channel and The Taste on ABC.