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 everything at risk…

I received a review copy from the publisher, Orenda Books. I am grateful to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for the opportunity to join the blog tour for The Kitchen.

The writing in The Kitchen is exquisite. Here’s a crime story, a friendship story, a story of vengeance, of retaliation and of body parts being dredged out of the river – and it’s laid out for us by Simone Buchholz in a little over two hundred pages. She packs so much action, energy and description into the tightest and devastatingly effective narrative that no word seems wasted.

I’m no stranger to Buchholz’s Chastity Reiley books and I’ve always enjoyed the stories about the Hamburg State Prosecutor and the dual investigative and prosecutor roles she seems to hold. Her personal life always seems chaotic and that comes to the fore in The Kitchen as one of Chasity’s closest friends is attacked.

Unable to help her friend and under pressure from her boyfriend over where their relationship may be heading – Chastity feels she may be losing focus on the investigation into the human remains that have been found in the river.

What I loved about The Kitchen is that the reader is given some very broad hints as to where certain elements of the story may be heading. You keep reading and the hints and suggestions keep coming until you know what Chastity is not seeing. And it’s glorious. Because, if you’re keeping up, then one scene will have your stomach churning in horrified realisation.

There’s a lot of snappy dialogue, many cigarettes are smoked and emotions and frustration run high. Without doing spoilers I was happy with how the retaliation element of the plot was handled, I didn’t like the fact the events triggering that retaliation seemed to be all too avoidable but all too common. Tremendous writing to capture those emotions.

When a review of a translated book is singing the praises of the power of the author’s writing it also needs to sing the praises of the phenomonal work the translator contributed towards my enjoyment of a story. I would not have had the opportunity to experience the thrills and shocks in The Kitchen were it not for Rachel Ward taking Simone Buchholz’s words and making that tight, powerful narrative style shine for us.

At a time where I have been struggling to read and have lacked focus on many books I have tried to enjoy I realise I needed a book like The Kitchen to shake some life into my reading lethargy. The tight plotting, the snappy dialogue and the economy of Buchholz’s writing let me zip through this book and hold my attention – a very refreshing and timely read.

The Kitchen is available in paperback, digital and audiobook format.  You can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-kitchen/simone-buchholz/rachel-ward/9781916788077