ANTHONY BOURDAIN – Bone in the Throat. Bloomsbury, reprint softcover, September 2000; hardcover edition: Villard, June 1995.

   Before he gained fame and fortune as a food writer/celebrity chef, Anthony Bourdain was an obscure, but damn fine, crime fiction writer.

   Tommy Pagano, a sous-chef at the Dreadnaught, accidentally gets mixed up in a murder committed by his misfit gangster uncle, Sally “Wig,” and his creepy sidekick “Skinny,” who kills in the nude to avoid getting evidence on his clothes.

   The feds are convinced Tommy’s dirty — and he doesn’t know that the restaurant where he works is an elaborate federal sting operation. Can this end well for anyone?

   Bone in the Throat is wickedly humorous, which only serves to intensify the noir tension. The few scenes set in a heroin house are truly terrifying. Dark, funny, fine and recommended.

ANTHONY BORDAIN – Crime Fiction:

      Bone in the Throat. Villard, 1995.
      Gone Bamboo. Villard, 1997.

      The Bobby Gold Stories. Bloomsbury, 2003.