skygiants

I realize that there are still three weeks left in the year and this is tempting fate a little, but I'm pretty sure I did it: I found the absolute worst book I will read this year.

I want it stated for the record: I have gotten a lot better about not compulsively finishing everything once I start it if it's absolutely horrific. Unfortunately, I brought Someone Is Killing The Great Chefs of Europe along on a day I had a lot of public transit to do and I didn't have any other books with me, and so, to my regret, I read the entire thing anyway.

The plot: famous gourmand and magazine editor Achille van Golk is dying of obesity, so he decides to murder all his favorite chefs in revenge. This isn't a spoiler, it's in the first chapter of the book.

The rest of the novel involves several chefs being gruesomely murdered while Natasha, Achille's favorite dessert chef, comes under suspicion for their deaths. She also has a lot of really unfortunately described sex, some with doomed chefs and some with police officials and some with her ex-husband who is also the romantic lead, because this is that kind of book.

(It's okay! He very nobly doesn't attempt to bang her on the actual night that she's grieving the second murder of a dear friend and colleague, just complains the whole next day about how difficult it was not to make a move and how put-upon he feels!)

To be fair, I should make it quite clear that this book is a satire on Haute Cuisine Culture and there are some scenes that are quite funny. The scene in which all the best Parisian chefs start complaining that if someone is going to start murdering great chefs it is an INSULT not to start with the French - I laughed! Too bad the whole thing is so completely soaked in gross seventies sexism, fat-shaming, and unfortunate casual incest.

(Did I forget to mention the unfortunate casual incest? There's unfortunate casual incest. Natasha's first murdered chef boyfriend is also her adoptive father. This did lead to a plot thread about Natasha's relationship with her adoptive mother, which I did, despite myself, get halfway invested in ...

UNTIL HER ADOPTED MOTHER GOT BLOWN UP WITH AN EXPLODING ELECTRIC MIXER IMMEDIATELY AFTER THEIR TOUCHING RECONCILIATION.

I did this, I thought. I doomed Natasha's poor adoptive mother by thinking that there might be something redeemable in this text.)

...all that said, Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe is an amazing title and despite my regrets, I still think my decision to buy it from the dollar bin was a reasonable choice given the information I had at the time.