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!

Workman’s Complication by Rich Leder – REVIEW

Workman’s Complication is the first book of the McCall & Company series, published by Laugh Riot Press. I was kindly sent this book to read and give an honest review. 

Kate McCall is an off-off-off-off Broadway actress in her mid forties. When her father is found brutally murdered in a company elevator, Kate inherits her fathers private investigation business. Kate has helped her father through the years but feels nowhere close to wanting to change profession from actress to PI, but going through the case files in the company she stumbles upon something that might be connected to her fathers murder.

A new case also lands in her lap. A possible insurance scam. She was ready to burry the business with her father, but she could really use the money and decides to do this one final job.

Kate assembles the extremely unique, quirky and eccentric tenants of her building complex and her acting colleagues and gets herself and them in a whole lot of trouble along the way to solve both cases.

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The Writing

The writing was so witty and hilarious. I went into this not really knowing what I was going to get, but this book had me giggling at the third page already. Leder writes in a way that really captivates, entertain and holds your attention throughout the whole story.

The Characters

I’ve been reading a lot of YA lately and I was in dire need of something more adult now and it was so refreshing to read a book with such a strong and funny female protagonist. I loved Kate from the very beginning. She is smart, hilarious, sexy, doesn’t take crap from anyone and she is confident. I think the real female confidence is what I’ve been really missing in a lot of other books that I’ve been reading lately, but Kate definitely brought that to the table. That combined with the human flaws that made her so relatable made her an amazing character.

When it came to the side characters, I have two personal favorites.

Ray was a phenomenal character. Every time he came around I knew that I would laugh out loud from the words coming from that old man.

And Fu is my absolute favorite. He’s a mystery and just lovely and all kinds of quirky in a lovely way!

The Plot

I really did fly through this book and it had me curious and at times at the edge of my seat. The book’s plot was consistent and good.

The only thing I missed here was that I would have loved for the “edge of my seat” moments would have a lasted a bit longer. It just felt like some of the problems were resolved a little bit too fast.

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This was such a fun and interesting read! Highly recommend if you want a funny and different kind of mystery read!

I can’t wait to read more of this series and to see what happens next with Kate.

Thank you so much to Shannon and Rich for sending this my way!! 

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Do you want your own copy of Workman’s Complication? Click on the Amazon link below:

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Have you read any funny or interesting books lately? Tell me about them 🙂