To Kill a Cook - Hardcover

Akers, W. M.

Hardcover

ISBN 13: 9798217044863

Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

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.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

W.M. Akers is a novelist, playwright, and game designer. He is the author of the mystery novels Critical Hit, Westside, and Westside Saints; the creator of the bestselling games Deadball: Baseball With Dice and Comrades: A Revolutionary RPG; and the curator of the history newsletter Strange Times. He lives in Philadelphia, but hasn’t traded in his Mets cap yet.

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Tuesday
1

So it started with a severed head.
Well, not really—nothing ever starts with a severed head. It started at seven a.m., I guess, when the kids woke up screaming like they were being stabbed in the spine. I’d been living with my fiancé and his boys for about a year but I hadn’t acclimated to the furious inefficiency of a morning with children, so even before I got out of the house I was running late. I skipped breakfast because I was headed for Laurent’s, on 54th and Mad, only half a block from a nasty little deli that does the most exquisitely greasy pastrami, egg and cheese, so I stomped through Central Park toward my destiny or, at the very least, something to eat.
It was a bright blue morning in early April and the sun was shining like a freshly unwrapped toy. It should have been beautiful, yeah, but this was New York in 1972, so getting out of the park meant navigating a four-foot smear of human waste. Shit doesn’t bother me—you step around it, it’s not a hassle—but being late makes my jaw ache. Toru had the kids, which meant it was my turn to work. I had a column to write and nothing to say, so I needed to do some eating and some thinking and unless I stuck to my schedule there was no way I’d have time for both. By the time I hit Mad the coffee had turned to bile and I was dying for a cigarette and it would have been fine if I’d gotten that sandwich, but when I neared the deli there was smoke on the wind. Somebody had smashed a wood-paneled Torino wagon through the front window and I definitely wasn’t getting anything to eat.
Still, I felt better when I got to Laurent’s because I always do. I turned at the faded green awning, took four steps down from the sidewalk and pulled the handle of the famous rust red door. It was locked, which was annoying because Laurent had promised to leave it open, but you don’t get to be a genius by remembering to unlock doors. I thumped a few times and I guess I looked unhinged because a family of tourists outside the hotel next door stared at me like I was a rabid dog. I peeked through the window.
“If he’s not here I’m gonna kill him,” I said.
Two huge ferns flanked the front door, older than the dinosaurs. I played a quick game of eenie, meenie, minie, moe, chose the left one, buried my hand in damp dirt and felt around for the spare key. The tourists continued to gawk. They were refugees from the Sears catalog. The mom looked like a creamsicle—orange minidress over orange slacks, all dripping white fringe—and the boys had matching bowl cuts, green polos, plaid pants, and expressions of stupor. The only thing spoiling the picture was the dad, who was wearing a puffy winter coat even though it was, I don’t know, sixty-five degrees? He had one of those three martini faces, twisted into sweaty fear.
“The concierge said it isn’t safe,” he said.
“Bert,” sighed the woman. “He said it was safe after eight.”
“It’s 7:54,” said one of the kids, staring intently at his Mickey Mouse watch. “No. 7:55.”
“We’re going back inside,” said Dad.
“I did not cross half the country to sit in the hotel,” answered Mom.
“And I didn’t come here to get stabbed.”
Tourists really do get worse every year. Sure, plenty of people get killed in this town, but the odds are decent that on any given day it won’t be you. So I pulled my arm out of the planter and yelled something encouraging:
“Get breakfast!”
They froze. Which I guess is understandable because I was a stranger with a dirty arm but they were gonna benefit from my expertise whether they liked it or not.
“You’re three blocks from Cohen’s, they do amazing potato pancakes. On Madison and 52nd there’s this pastry shop called Antoine’s I think, and they’ve got éclairs and croissants that ooze butter, or if you want something good for kids, go left on Lex and walk until you see this big chrome clock—that’s Shepherd’s Diner, which is cheap and the food comes fast and the waiters flirt but not too much.”
As far as I was concerned this was all very helpful—free advice from a professional eater—but I guess I was kind of shrieking because with each word they inched closer toward the door. The man tried to answer.
“The concierge said—”
“The concierge wants you inside all week eating room service. Where you from?”
His mouth flapped. No words came out. I yelled louder:
“I said where are you from?”
“New Harmony,” said one boy.
“Indiana,” clarified the other. The parents hugged them closer, afraid that any more information would be enough for me to murder them in their beds. I plunged my arm into the second planter and dug for the key that, dammit, just had to be there. I kept my eyes on the family, though—I’m coordinated enough that I can shout and rummage at the same time.
“And you didn’t haul yourselves all the way from Indiana to sit on a hotel bedspread eating rubber eggs and watching Captain Kangaroo. Don’t be a coward. Eat!”
Y’know when Daffy Duck runs away so fast that he leaves behind a little cloud of duck-shaped dust? That’s how they bolted back into the hotel.
“Their loss.”
My hand closed on the chill metal key. I put New Harmony out of mind, brushed off the dirt, and opened the door.
It was dark in there. That was part of the charm. At night it was a place of shadows and golden light where everyone looked a little bit beautiful. In the morning, it was a big room with the lights off. I waited for my eyes to adjust. When they didn’t, I felt for the switch and tried to ignore how threadbare everything looked under the glare.
“Laurent?” I called. “César?”
My voice crashed into the soft beige tablecloths and died. I passed the maître d’s stand and climbed to the bar, jaw clenchingly aware that I had roughly fifteen minutes before I had to head downtown. I filled a rocks glass with something called “pub mix.” Once Laurent’s bar snacks had been toasted almonds and cured olives, but the belt had been tightened until only canned mix was left. It was stale, yeah, but salty too and exactly what my body required. I bit through the pale brown crunch and eyed the old pictures of Laurent posing with all the favorite post-war celebrities: Lee Dixon and Walter Pidgeon, Tommy Dorsey and this blonde whose name I couldn’t remember but whom I considered deeply glamorous when I was a child. They looked bleached and tanned and sweaty with gin, smiling like the party was never gonna end. I found it terribly unfair that they were allowed to smoke while I was not.
Time passed, like it usually does. After thirteen minutes, I grabbed the bar phone and dialed PA 9-9229. Judy Grich, my editor, answered mid-inhale. I could smell her from here.
“Yeah?” she said.
“It’s Bernice.”
“Not like you to be running late.”
My back got hot. The only thing worse than being late is being called out. I twisted the phone’s pale blue exoskeleton in my fist.
“It’s Toru’s birthday party Friday. We’re having it Laurent’s.”
“Sure is nice to have fancy friends.”
“Except he called with the menu and it was, I don’t know. Bland.”
“Like what?” She sounded hungry. I flipped open my notepad and read what Laurent gave me on Sunday night.
“Cruise ship food. Chilled hearts of celery. Something called ‘Petit Alaska Shrimp...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 13: 9798217044863
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland