Gone Bamboo

"Gone Bamboo" by Anthony Bourdain, published by Bloomsbury. Gone Bamboo pits Henry, a CIA-trained assassin, and Frances, his hard-nosed, hard-bodied wife against two governments and a cross-dressing mafioso. Henry and Frances have gone bamboo-living an idyllic, retired life in the Caribbean-but when Donnie, a powerful capo relocated by the Federal Witness Protection Program, inadvertently jeopardizes their plan, all hell breaks loose. Despite the fact that Henry once tried to kill Donnie, the two join forces against the transvestite mob boss looking to ace Donnie. But things aren't going to be so easy...Written in Anthony Bourdain's signature style-raucous, funny, a bit vicious, and always fun- Gone Bamboo is a feast of murder, hitmen, and the hitwomen they love. Reminiscent of Dashiell Hammet's Nick and Nora, Bourdain's Henry and Frances are a tough-talking, unlikely couple that will win you over-if they don't kill you first. From Kirkus ReviewsFor his second course, Bourdain, novelist (Bone in the Throat, 1995) and chef (at Sullivan's, in Manhattan), dishes up a sorry, soggy mess of a stew in which a good-hearted hit man finds himself on the spot with both mob chieftains and law-enforcement agencies. Hired by an ambitious cross-dressing mafioso named Pazz Calabrese to eliminate his two immediate superiors, Henry Denard dispatches one but only wounds the other, D'Andrea (Donnie Wicks) Balistierian aging capo di tutti capi in New York. After returning to Saint Martin, the idyllic West Indian haven he calls home, the hired gun (a decorated Vietnam vet who went on to work for the CIA) learns his wounded target has turned informant and will testify against former partners in crime. What's more, an accommodating interpretation of the Witness Protection Act allows Donnie Wicks (and a small army of US marshals) to take up residence on Saint Martin. Concerned that he and his hardcase wife Frances may have to find another place to live, Henry talks his way inside the former don's compound for a meet. Not to worry, the elderly outlaw has the nothing-personal aspect of gangdom's business down pat, and he soon takes a shine to the professional killer as well as to his lovely, lethal lady. In the meantime, the expatriate godfather's former underlings mount a deadly campaign to silence him. In the wake of a furious assault on his island home (which costs six feds and a like number of Dominican nationals their lives), Donnie Wicks (now under the protection of venal French officials) is reported dead. As a favor to the American authorities cheated of a show trial, Henry heads north to waste the kinky Calabrese and his top lieutenants with a light anti-tank weapon on a New Jersey construction site. At the close, he's drinking and living it up with Frances and Donnie Wicks at his Caribbean hideaway. In the parlance of cuisine: tripe. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.Review''Bourdain establishes himself as a new master of the wiseass crime comedy.'' -- Publishers Weekly ''Bourdain serves up a delectable concoction sure to appeal...'' -- Denver Post Book details: published 1996. Order now on BookShops.in with fast, reliable delivery across India.