To Kill a Cook
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
A USA TODAY BESTSELLER
Tender at the Bone meets Finlay Donovan is Killing It in this hilarious, fast-paced mystery about a feisty food critic in 1970s NY who finds her chef friend murdered and realizes she might be the only one to find the killer.
Nobody in Manhattan eats better than Bernice Black. It’s 1972, and she is the city’s busiest restaurant critic, juggling her fiance and his two young sons with demands of fine dining. Bernice talks fast, walks faster, has a razor-sharp wit and no patience for anything--or anyone--that gets in her way.
When she stops by the famed restaurant of her favorite chef and mentor, Laurent Tirel, early one morning, she stumbles across a horrific scene in the kitchen: Laurent's severed head, perfectly preserved in a flawless mold of jellied aspic.
Her meeting with the cops assigned to the case proves only one thing–they know nothing about food or the seedy underworld that BB Black has made her home. With layoffs looming, Bernice makes the gamble of her career—she promises her editor she can catch Laurent’s killer before the week is out.
To Kill a Cook is a delicious, witty, fast-paced mystery with a lovable, unforgettable protagonist at it center.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Akers (Westside Lights) delivers a witty, fast-paced mystery centered on 29-year-old New York City food writer Bernice Black. In 1972, long before the word "foodie" has entered the lexicon, Bernice is preparing for an early morning chat with her culinary idol-turned-close friend Laurent Tirel, "the best chef New York had ever seen." After Bernice arrives at Laurent's restaurant before it opens, however, she finds his severed head suspended in aspic on a refrigerator shelf. It's immediately clear to Bernice that the NYPD detective in charge of the investigation is ill-equipped to navigate the ruthless world of fine dining. So, with the specter of impending layoffs at her magazine looming, she decides to solve the case herself and deliver an exclusive investigative piece that could help save her job. Complicating matters is the fact that her fiancé is at work, leaving her to care for his two young boys. She has little choice but to ferry them from one high-profile Manhattan restaurant to the next on the trail of a killer. Akers's evocation of the grit and glamour of 1970s New York is pitch-perfect, and Bernice is a wonderfully winning protagonist. This is pure fun.
