Watch out, here comes a surreal tale of crime, murder and mayhem.

Johnny Fairfax is a two-time convict who’s not a bad as he seems. When his new boss at the nursing home tells him she doesn’t like criminals he assures her neither does he. She gives him a job in the kitchen anyway and Johnny gets down to the business of minding his own business. That is until behavioral gerontologist, Carrie, comes along.

Carrie’s mom is a resident at the nursing home and little does Johnny know, Carrie is more of a criminal right now than he is. She’s just stolen a top-secret, experimental drug – the one which has turned the aged rats in her lab into sprightly young ones.

An age reversing medicine in a nursing home? You can probably see where this is going but not what comes next.

Johnny is a great cook and the residents appreciate this, so when his parole officer gets difficult, Johnny’s new friends jump to his rescue, quite literally. Things get pretty dark, pretty quick. Normal this would mean a story about hiding a body now, but that won’t be necessary… the pensioners are hungry! And anything Johnny cooks, they’re happy to eat.

So now we’ve got the cops looking for a missing man and Big Pharma’s hit men looking for their missing drug. Will Carrie and Johnny make it out alive without either of them being arrested for a murder, cannibalism or theft? And with their delicate hearts intact?

Cooking for Cannibals is a Raymond Chandler-esque creep-thriller with a very funny and sardonic edge. Fast paced, jumpy and kinda gross, it’s hard to pigeon hole. You’ll just have to take a look for yourself.

Thanks to Emma at Damp Pebbles and Rich for a review copy!

The book is available to buy HERE

About Rich Leder:

Rich Leder has been a working writer for more than three decades. His credits include 19 produced movies—television films for CBS, Lifetime, and Hallmark and feature films for Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Tri-Star Pictures, Longridge Productions, and Left Bank Films—and six novels for Laugh Riot Press.

He’s been the lead singer in a Detroit rock band, a restaurateur, a Little League coach, an indie film director, a literacy tutor, a magazine editor, a screenwriting coach, a wedding guru, a PTA board member, a commercial real estate agent, and a visiting artist for the UNCW Film Studies Department, among other things, all of which, it turns out, was grist for the mill.

He resides on the North Carolina coast with his awesome wife, Lulu, and is sustained by the visits home of their three fabulous children.

Early on in this tight international thriller we’re reminded of the old British saying ‘Where there’s muck there’s brass,’ and this couldn’t be more true in this shocking story.

Jack Cade is a retired career Met officer, holed up in New Zealand after a case in London became very personal. Now he’s called back home to speak to a dying relative but he doesn’t go gladly. There’s bad blood, greed, imperialism and lies between them. Jack has tried and failed to get to the truth from him before but now it might be even more important that he does.

A new spate of people smuggling activity is evident but this time something’s different. These people have been tricked in more ways than one. There are no gang master waiting to suck them into the modern-day slavery, that would be a mercy. These victims found in the hangar all bear gruesome wounds because they’re being used as nothing more than mules.

As the body count climbs to a thousand so does Jack’s desperation and his understanding of the fraught and complicated imperial British past. He sees how the combination of desperation and greed can be exploited to create a condition of hopelessness. How some people’s good intentions can lead to misery playing into the hands of the sick antagonist who feeds of it and enjoys the smell of the blood. 

This novel is a jigsaw puzzle of a thriller full of action and chases but with genuine insight and perspective threaded through the narrative. It’s a multi-layered story which plays to its strengths and shows a versatile author with a lot to offer. 

Thank you Hobeck Books and Lewis for an advance copy.