Bone in the Throat

Bourdain’s first book was this pulpy crime novel, written years before Kitchen Confidential made him famous. Tommy Pagana is a talented young cook working in a Little Italy restaurant that happens to be a front for his uncle’s mob crew. When he witnesses something he shouldn’t have, the FBI comes calling, and he is squeezed between the family he grew up with and the law. The kitchen scenes crackle with the insider knowledge Bourdain would later build a career on.