Chef Anthony Bourdain, Murder Mysteries, and the Food Connection
Believe it or not Chef Anthony Bourdain wrote murder mysteries before becoming a food journalist. His books centered around chefs, the kitchen, crime, and murder. He often directed his TV cooking shows like murder mysteries or true crime shows.
One of his TV cooking shows No Reservations filmed in Boston in 1973 was filmed like the adaption of The Friends of Eddie Coyle. This book was Anthony Bourdains favorite crime novel. Eddie Coyle was a gun runner someone that made sure the crooks had guns for bank robberies.
Chef Bourdain often interviewed authors as guest on his cooking shows. His crime novels gave the reader the image that kitchens can be a site of violence and crime as well as cooking.
In his youth Anthony Bourdain loved punk rock music, drank, and took an array of drugs. His appeal to his audience was his honesty about his addictions and ability to relate to different cultures as a chef. He loved reading crime fiction and watching shows about true crime.
Before his death he worked on a project called Pier 57. It was a 155,000 square foot cafeteria featuring different ethnic cooking food styles, and restaurants. Today Pier 57 has a food court with a wide array of international food stalls, chef dinners, and restaurants with food, wine, and entertainment.
Anthony Bourdains Murder Mysteries and Books
His first crime novel was Bone in Throat A Novel of Death and Digestion. It's about a rising chef that snorts cocaine and takes a job at his uncle's restaurant in Little Italy unaware of its connection to the mob. The chef discovers the truth when he discovers a body in the restaurant kitchen killed by the mob.
The book was adapted into a film that Bourdain directed. It has been described as a sociopathic beach book. Some critics say it is autobiographical based on his own career as a chef.
The second novel Gone Bamboo was about a married couple that lived in the Carribbean as professional assassins. Henry and Francis perform a job that goes wrong trying to kill a Mafia godfather and this complicates their life. Despite complications they both have a sense of humor, distrust authority, and are willing to protect each other.
Anthony Bourdains third novel The Bobby Gold Stories is about a criminal that spends ten years in prison. When Bobby gets out of jail, he goes back to work breaking bones for criminals. He works in the restaurant and club industry. Bobby needs to work and has bills to pay. He meets Nickki the sauté cook at the club and romance follows. His life becomes even more dangerous.
After these novels Bourdain published a nonfiction crime book called Typhoid Mary. She was a chef that infected customers with the disease. It was believed she was carrier that displayed no symptoms of the illness. . She worked in multiple households and was linked to many outbreaks of typhoid fever.
Later when it was discovered she the cause of the outbreaks she was isolated and lived on North Brother Island. This story depicted society's perception of illness and individual rights. The book discusses New York kitchens, class relations, sanitation, and during the time a limited understanding on how disease spreads.
More Books About Crime
Anthony Bourdain wrote a graphic novel with Joel Rose that combines restaurant culture with Japanese gangster films and a satire on chefs treated as important celebrities that follow their own rules. The title of the graphic novel was Get Jiro.
Hungry Ghost was a comic book graphic novel about a Japanese story telling game. The chefs sat in a dark room with candles, blew out candles leaving the room in darkness. Each chef told a tale illustrated in the book by a comic book artist.
Overall Anthony Bourdain's crime novels received mixes reviews but showed that he had many talents. He was a chef, producer, food journalist and fiction writer. Some remember him for his addictions but perhaps we should go beyond that and remember him for his many good qualities and empathy for he had for different cultures.
Anthony Bourdain worked to make conditions safer in the restaurant industry for workers. His cooking shows highlighted the struggle of different cultures in the world and promoted equality for everyone.
References:
Anthony Bourdain's Love Affair With Crime Fiction, by Thomas Wickersham, June 2018, Crime Reads 2026
Things Got Broken: Anthony Bourdain, Crime Fiction, and The Power of Food by Lyndsay Faye, June 29, 2018, Criminal Element 2026
Nine Little Known Fact About Anthony Bourdain, by Catherine Brooks, June 6, 2026, Tasting Table 2026
In These Chilling Crime Novels Good Cooking Leads to Bad Behavior by Jessica Carbone, October 24, 2024, Sauveur, 2026
Food and Crime Anthony Bourdains Crime Fiction Novels. Novel Suspects, 2026
Before Kitchen Confidential Anthony Bourdain Was Writing Crime Novels by Anja Stankovic, July 28, 2026, Vogue Adria 2026
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