Hell’s Kitchen

The pleasures of reading W.M. Akers’ new mystery To Kill a Cook are similar to the joys of fine dining, an experience that occupies the heart of this novel. Akers prepares each chapter with subtle flavors and surprising spices, the episodes sequenced to satisfy an array of palates while overturning readers’ preconceived notions of the genre’s fare. The climax, like an elaborate dessert, whips up a frothy topping and delivers a sweet finish, leaving readers sated and captivated, eager to tell friends about this exquisite literary meal.

The novel is replete with food. Hardly a page goes by without a reference to its preparation or consumption, Pavlovian triggers for the reader’s appetite. This book should be read with snacks on hand. The murder mystery begins when our narrator, New York restaurant critic Bernice Black, finds her favorite chef, Laurent Tirel, dead in his own kitchen. Worse, Laurent has been decapitated, his head encased in aspic and stored in the refrigerator.

For readers unfamiliar with aspic, a crucial clue, Bernice provides a primer: “A jelly made from reduced stock that’s so thick with fat it stands up on its own. It’s just like the Jell-O mold you brought to your last weenie roast, except instead of being studded with marshmallows and maraschino cherries, it’s filled with the most delicately cooked fish or meat or eggs. It’s hell to make.”

This crime hits Bernice personally. Laurent has been her mentor and friend, the reason she became obsessed with food when, as a 19-year-old CUNY student in Brooklyn, she saved her puny wages to have one magical meal at Laurent’s. On the same day she finds his body, she learns that her magazine is going out of business. Bernice needs to nail this story, which means solving the mystery, to secure her future in journalism.

Bernice proves to be enterprising as a detective and entertaining as a narrator. Over five frenetic days, she hunts clues and confronts witnesses with a brashness born of confidence and desperation. A reporter trying to save her career, she’s also a detective attempting to solve a murder (or two), a fiancée trying to save her engagement to Japanese translator Toru, and a caretaker for Toru’s two sons.

To further complicate her week, she experiences a sexual awakening, realizing that she is attracted to women, too, particularly the rugged types she meets on the streets. “Turns out I’ve got it bad for girls with heavy features and dark hair and loud voices, girls with big legs and big asses and opinions on everything. Girls who can destroy you with a smirk, who check you like a hockey player if you’re slow on the subway steps.” She sees these women in every neighborhood. “New York City is a minefield.”

Akers sets his novel in 1972, a time of transition for the restaurant world and for New York as a whole. “Butter boys” like Laurent, who brought French cuisine to the city in the ‘50s, have lost prestige, as younger chefs experiment with lighter dishes. New York itself has fallen into decline, the scent of cooking losing street fights to the stench of decay, and crime is rampant. (Elevator posters read “How will YOU avoid being mugged today?”) Bernice, exhausted, hops on a subway car that is “beat to shit” and whose “seats had been ripped out … I had to content myself with slumping against the window, hoping I looked alert enough that nobody would grab my purse.”

Bernice’s investigation takes her all over the city, to her old Brooklyn stomping grounds and the dark streets of lower Manhattan. She encounters a colorful cast of characters, including an array of half-lunatic/half-genius chefs who wanted Laurent dead. Suspicious cops, grizzled reporters, slick-suited mobsters, drug addicts, and petty thieves — Akers packs his tale with reprobates who, in Bernice’s eyes, seem not threatening but adorable.

Akers, who offered fantastical versions of New York in Westside and Westside Saints, keeps this story grounded in a recognizable milieu, inflected with the flair of mid-century noir. Bernice sounds like a Philip Marlowe who can make Charlotte Russe. “I leaned on the bar and admired myself in the mirror,” Bernice says. “I looked as tired as potato salad that’s been left out in the sun.”

To Kill a Cook pays homage to the classic French restaurant — appropriate for an author whose mother was a chef in Nashville. One character grasps what makes Laurent’s restaurant a unique experience even after his death: “With light like this, everybody’s better looking. With food like this, nobody’s mean … it takes the edge off the world.” Like a fine restaurant, this novel delivers on its promise. Delicious and satisfying, it leaves readers wanting a second serving.