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.