Cooking for Cannibals by Rich Leder 📚 BOOK REVIEW

Rich Leder

I read a digital edition of Cooking for Cannibals that was sent to me for free by Laugh Riot Press in exchange for an honest review.

Genre: Comic thriller

Publisher: Laugh Riot Press

Originally published: January 21st, 2021

Pages: 371 (Kindle edition)

Synopsis by the publisher:

Carrie Cromer pushes the boundaries of science, not her social life. The brilliant behavioral gerontologist’s idea of a good time is hanging out with her beloved lab rats and taking care of her elderly mother and the other eccentric old folks at the nursing home. So no one is more surprised than Carrie when she steals the lab’s top-secret, experimental medicine for aging in reverse.

Two-time ex-con Johnny Fairfax dreams of culinary greatness. But when his corrupt parole officer tries to drag him from the nursing home kitchen, the suddenly young-again residents spring to his defense and murder the guy—and then request Johnny cook them an evidence-devouring dinner to satisfy their insatiable side-effect appetite.
As their unexpected mutual attraction gets hot, Carrie and Johnny find themselves caught up with the authorities who arrive to investigate the killing. But even more dangerous than the man-eating not-so-senior citizens could be the arrival of death-dealing pharmaceutical hitmen.

Can Carrie and Johnny find true love in all this bloody madness?

Cooking for Cannibals is a dark comic thriller with a heaping helping of romance. If you like fast-paced plots, unconventional characters, and humor that crosses the line, then you’ll have a feast with Rich Leder’s wild ride.

My thoughts:

And what a ride it was!

I am a sucker for dark humor, so when Laugh Riot Press reached out to me and told me about this book, I was intrigued!
I read another one of Rich Leder’s books a few years back that I really enjoyed, so I had high hopes for this one as well. And let me tell you, I was not disappointed!

Cooking for Cannibals reads like a fast-paced action-comedy. There is never a dull moment, and it is filled with interesting and quirky characters. There is also no shortage of blood and gore in this story, so if that’s something that makes you queasy, then I would recommend you consider skipping this one.
I, on the other hand, love some darkness and gore in my books, so this book was a perfect match for me!

One of the things I especially enjoy with Leder’s writing is how he writes characters that are relatable at the same time as they are incredibly weird. My personal favorites in this book were The Fixer and The Cleaner, the two hitmen out to get our main characters.
It was fun to have a peek into the mind of these men, each with their preference for torture and with a complete lack of morals.

Rich Leder has a way of making a story where everyone acts terribly in their own way. So, you end up rooting for Carrie and Johnny even when they murder, cook, and serve the parole officer to the Copa crew. There’s a little bit of evil in everyone.

Speaking of the Copa crew! What a delightfully quirky and eccentric bunch of characters! I enjoyed getting to know each and every one of them! I would’ve loved to have gotten to know even more of their background stories.

I giggled my way through this pageturner, and even though I could predict some of the things that happened, I enjoyed every second of it!

If you like humor on the darker side and fast-paced stories with lots of twists and turns, I would highly recommend checking out Cooking for Cannibals!

It is as grotesque as it sounds at times but in the best possible way!