- Paperback
- Publisher: Von Holtzbrinck Publishing Services (April 2 2003)
- ISBN-10: 1582341699
- ISBN-13: 978-1582341699
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Kirkus Reviews
For 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.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Review
'A caper of murder and mayhem that reads like Carl Hiaasen on holiday with Elmore Leonard and goes out with a bang like a tequila slammer.' The Times
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
If Tony Bourdain cooks as well as he writes...,
By Margaret Rovai (Warrenville, IL USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Gone Bamboo (Paperback)
I'll move to New York and eat at Les Halles twice a week. Mid-week, of course.I loved "Bone in the Throat," and was delighted to find major characters re-appearing in "Gone Bamboo." I read it in an afternoon, and heck! I didn't think it was too hardboiled. In fact,I did cry in a couple of places. Like Elmore Leonard, Bourdain knows how to write dialogue. He also knows how to create characters, and write a pageturning plot. The sense of place, in this case St. Martin, is done so well that I could feel the sand between my toes, smell the barbecue shacks and want to run to the fidge hoping to find a bottle of Red Stripe. Bourdain has a nice touch especially with creating strong female characters. Frances, the female protagonist, is now my idol and role model.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Less cooking this time, and more shooting . . .,
By Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Gone Bamboo (Hardcover)
Henry Denard is an American ex-pat living with his wife, Frances, in a nice hotel on the Caribbean island of St. Martin. They hang around with friends, eat barbequed chicken, and drink a lot. And every so often, Henry gets paid to kill someone. It's a good living and they're happy. Then Henry messes up an assignment by only wounding the target, which irritates the customer -- a cross-dressing New York wiseguy, whom you may find amusing in the first chapter but who quickly becomes more menacing and a lot scarier. At the same time, "Donnie Wicks" Balistieri, an elderly capo and the target whom Henry failed to quite kill, has agreed to testify for the feds and is stashed away on the same island with a guard of U.S. marshals. This could be a problem for Henry and Frances. Then there's Mickey and Rachel, more recent escapees from New York (and who are perhaps the main characters from Bourdain's first novel), who live in Donnie's palatial home, and whom Henry hopes can be his conduit to old Donnie. Then there's Paulie the good soldier, and Kevin the hitman who finds love in a bordello, and Monsieur Ribiere, the French cop on the island. It sounds confusing, but the author is very good at laying out the plot clearly, pacing the action properly, and developing the characters in a way that hold your attention. He never lets you forget what these people really are, either. Just when you're smiling at the adolescent sexual antics of the middle-aged Henry and Frances, a bit of violence will remind you of the realities. If Bourdain cooks half as well as he writes, I'll have to make a reservation at his restaurant.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Bourdain Drops a Notch,
This review is from: Gone Bamboo (Paperback)
Maybe three stars is a little low. However in rating a book by an author whose previous work was stellar you can't help but be biased. "Gone Bamboo" is an above average novel with strange characters, a good storyline and some great action. However Bourdain gets away from what made his first book so good. The gangster feel is not as pronounced in this book and the restaurant setting is nonexistent."Gone Bamboo" is about semi retired hit man Henry Denard and his wife Frances. In the begining Henry is hired for one last hit on a mob boss Charlie Wagons. After botching the job Henry and Frances are hiding out on a tropical island. When who moves in next door Charlie Wagons himself, also hiding from the mob in the witness protection program. Henry know the mafia will come looking for Charlie and realizes that he may be found too. Henry befriends the ex-mobster and when the time comes for conflict the action really gets jumping. The major fault of this novel is that it is hard to like Henry or Frances. They are lazy,drug users, which when the actions starts makes it hard to believe their reactions. If you consider reading this book, I strongly suggest you read "Bone in the Throat" first. There are about a half dozen characters who cross over in this book including Tommy Pagano the main character from "Bone In the Throat".
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