Today it’s over to Mandie who has her review of the latest Chastity Riley novel by Simone Buchholz, The Kitchen. I really enjoyed this, even if it did make me even more suspicious of sausages than I already am. You can find my review here. Here’s what the book is all about:

About the Book

Hamburg State Prosecutor Chastity Riley and her colleagues investigate the murders of men with a history of abuse towards women … as a startling, horrifying series of revelations emerge.

When neatly packed male body parts wash up by the River Elbe, Hamburg State Prosecutor Chastity Riley and her colleagues begin a perplexing investigation.

As the murdered men are identified, it becomes clear that they all had a history of abuse towards women, leading Riley to wonder if it would actually be in society’s best interests to catch the killers.

But when her best friend Carla is attacked, and the police show little interest in tracking down the offenders, Chastity takes matters into her own hands. As a link between the two cases emerges, horrifying revelations threaten Chastity’s own moral compass, and put everyone at incalculable risk…

Mandie’s Thoughts

I have been doing a lot of catching up this year picking up the books I have been neglecting and rediscovering characters I have come to enjoy especially when I am looking for something a bit different and Chastity Riley is definitely not your typical state prosecutor but she is fun to follow as you are never quite sure how she will handle either her professional or personal life. 

The Kitchen takes us back to the earlier part of Chastity’s career as she is called to investigate the murder of several men whose partial remains are found. Its not going to be easy but as the investigation progresses the victims are found to be not as innocent as you would expect, every one of them has a history of abusing women. When her best friend Carla is attacked, she wonders if whoever is responsible for the murders is not doing everyone a favour.

The clues are there as to who is behind what is going on, but it still doesn’t quite prepare you for the ending as the true extent of what is happening is revealed but it may have you evaluating some of your life choices. The short chapters give the book a feeling that the story is fast paced yet at the same time the investigation seems to move slowly. The dark themes are there but the violence is predominantly off the page and the reader is only looking at the aftermath but that in itself is still quite powerful. 

This may be one of my favourite books of the series, not so much because of the of the subject matter but more because we get to understand Chasity more with there being as much focus on her life as the investigation itself. She may not know what she wants from life, but she is fiercely loyal to her friends and is not shy about pushing the boundaries of what is an acceptable course of action to get to the truth in her job. She is someone you want in your corner both personally and professionally and I can’t wait to meet up with her again soon

About the Author

Simone Buchholz was born in Hanau in 1972. At university, she studied Philosophy and Literature, worked as a waitress and a columnist, and trained to be a journalist at the prestigious Henri-Nannen-School in Hamburg. In 2016, Simone Buchholz was awarded the Crime Cologne Award as well as runner-up in the German Crime Fiction Prize for Blue Night, which was number one on the KrimiZEIT Best of Crime List for months. The critically acclaimed Beton Rouge, Mexico Street and Hotel Cartagena all followed in the Chastity Riley series, with River Clyde out in 2022. She lives in Sankt Pauli, in the heart of Hamburg, with her husband and son.

About the Translator

Rachel Ward is a freelance translator of literary and creative texts from German and French to English. Having always been an avid reader and enjoyed word games and puzzles, she discovered a flair for languages at school and went on to study modern languages at the University of East Anglia. She spent the third year working as a language assistant at two grammar schools in Saaebrücken, Germany. During her final year, she realised that she wanted to put these skills and passions to use professionally and applied for UEA’s MA in Literary Translation, which she completed in 2002. Her published translations include Traitor by Gudrun Pausewang and Red Rage by Brigitte Blobel, and she is a Member of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting.

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