#Blogtour The Kitchen by Simone Buchhholz translated by Rachel Ward @ohneKlippo @OrendaBooks @annecater @RandomTTours #TheKitchen #Krimi #ChastityReloaded

The Blurb

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 offender, Chastity takes matters into her own hands and as a
link between the two cases emerges, horrifying revelations threaten Chastity’s
own moral compass … and put everything at risk.
The award-winning, critically acclaimed Chastity Riley series returns with a slick, hard-boiled, darkly funny thriller that tackles issues of violence and the
difference between law and justice with devastating insight, and an ending you
will never see coming…

My Review

Hamburg is labouring under the intense heat of the sun, Chastity Riley, State Prosecutor is positively sweltering, when a black bag of body parts is pulled from the river. Never a nice thing but the type of case Riley revels in, except this time Buchholz added an extra dimension when best friend Carla is brutally attacked. Now Riley is nothing if not loyal to her friends, the need to find and bring those responsible to justice paramount, but that wasn’t the full story. It was as if Buchholz stuck Riley at a road junction, her relationship with Klatsche a case in point. Would she ditch him or was it perhaps time to admit that she was in love and their relationship was more than spending the odd night together, acknowledging he felt the same way.

A heady mix, a live murder investigation, a personal decision could only mean one thing, the smoking of far too many cigarettes and late night/early mornings nursing endless glasses of alcohol. But this is how Buchholz’z Riley works, as she hovers around Hamburg’s less salubrious areas, watching, waiting, digging around for the people and the clues that will lead her to the perpetrators.

And the clues were there, perhaps not so apparent to Riley but Buchholz’s genius idea to insert small snippets of narrative from an unknown character, of their skill in the kitchen, of incidents within their life that hinted at something dangerous, at something too horrific to contemplate.

Ohh I loved it and it only got better as Buchholz sent Riley to a posh restaurant her usual Hamburg hostelries abandoned for one night. A fish out of water, but done for a reason that Buchholz used to tease us and Riley, a hint of revelation and disbelief.

And yet there was more, a moral dilemma, a moment to decide, Riley taking the only decision that felt right to her. Was it correct? Perhaps that’s for the individual to decide but for me it was a big yes, yes to a Riley not afraid to go with her gut, to hell with the consequences.

Another brilliant version of Chastity Riley, the character that keeps evolving, pushing against the norm yet retaining that contradictory personality we all love.

Brilliant!

I would like to thank Orenda Books for a copy of The Kitchen to read and review and to Random Things Tours for inviting My Bookish Blogspot to participate in the blogtour.

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, Hotel Cartagena and River Clyde all followed in the Chastity Riley series. Hotel Cartagena won the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger in 2022. The
Acapulco (2023) marked the beginning of the Chastity Reloaded series, with The
Kitchen out in 2024. She lives in Sankt Pauli, in the heart of Hamburg, with her husband and son