Review: Cooking for Cannibals by Rich Leder

Combine a group of cannibalistic young-again octogenarians with a traditional tale of the fountain of youth and you’ve got a unique, dark thriller in Cooking for Cannibals – part zombie fiction, part something you’ve never read before.

Thirty-five-year-old Carrie Kromer is a behavioral gerontologist who works for Alsiko Labs, a top secret facility in the San Fernando Valley trying to develop an age-reversing drug. When the Greek Gods – Carrie’s nine lab rats – suddenly regain their youth, she realizes that their experimental drug actually works. Hatching an elaborate alibi, she steals the pills to help her elderly mother, who’s suffering from the ravages of old age, and watches in shock as the aging process on her is reversed literally overnight, much to the jealousy of her elderly friends at the Copacabana, a low-rise home for seniors.

Due to the nature of his work, Carrie’s boss, Dr. Leo Sikorski, calls his two powerful investors to inform them of the theft, who send their hitmen: one a “fixer” to fix the problem, and the other a “cleaner” to clean up the mess and destroy the evidence. Determined to break Carrie’s air-tight alibi, recover the pills, and then kill her, neither one is prepared for the roadblocks thwarting their mission in the form of the Copa’s tattooed rock star cook, or its group of wily octogenarians who are eager to turn any obstacle into their next meal.

Zombie fiction is a bit of a tired enterprise, and while the novel doesn’t strictly fall into the genre, it is a refreshingly original take on the premise of a pathogen escaping a lab and wreaking havoc. Leder raises the stakes with a trenchant critique of the pharmaceutical industry and how it will try to protect any investment. As with Leder’s other fiction, the book is full of sly one-liners and characters who each outdo the last in their sense of whimsy and originality. At times, characters can veer to the cartoonish – or comic book – but that is part of the fun. The book is as much a page-turner for unveiling each new character as it is for the story.

From Johnny Fairfax, the Copa’s tattooed ex-con cook, who desperately wants to be a rock star chef, to the eccentric Copa residents like Buxom Brenda, Cranky Walter, Tall Bob, and Beach Blonde Dolores, who zealously embrace free love, like a seamier “Cocoon,” each character is well-drawn and wholly unique. The romance between the good-girl Carrie and the tattooed bad-boy Johnny is a bit of a cliché, but the Copa crowd’s immediate acceptance of Johnny into their fold is surprisingly touching, showing Leder’s dexterity with tone.

At times hysterically funny, at others times thrilling, and sometimes both at once, Cooking for Cannibals will appeal to readers of many genres – medical thrillers, satire, speculative fiction, and horror, to start. It’s a tough balance to combine moods, but Leder manages to pull off a novel that is at once a black comedy and fast-paced thriller, setting it apart in the crowded thriller genre, and existing in a genre of its own.