Carnivore is a book about a desperate plot by a New York restauranteur to make the money he owes, by catering for an elite dining club looking for something unprecedented. Kash's exotic meat restaurant caused him to become embroiled with loan shark Boris and now Kash needs to pay up. When he has the chance to impress uber rich Victor, who happens to be part of a secret billionaire dining club, Kash formulates a plan to offer Victor something to impress his billionaire club, taking gruesome inspiration.

This thriller isn't for the squeamish, but for those who aren't, it's a fun take on the 'character in debt has to go to extreme lengths to escape a loan shark' story that also plays with ideas of fine dining and the New York restaurant scene. Despite being a thriller, the book has a fairly slow pace, with a lot of flashbacks to Kash growing up in Bangladesh, and it explores the world of immigrants in the USA as well as the main thriller plotline. The ending is much faster, perhaps a bit too fast and without fully addressing all of the threat and tension that came before, but regardless it does follow through on what it sets up as the main narrative. One interesting point is that, in my (vegetarian) opinion, the descriptions of the meat aren't quite as luscious and visceral as some other novels centred around food, which means the reader isn't quite as drawn into the meal and its "unprecedented" conclusion (which may be a good or a bad thing).

I had fun with this novel, which you can easily imagine adapted into a film, and the current interest in media around restaurants and high end food hopefully means that the right audience will find it. If you like crime thrillers that are a bit deeper and with a satirical side, Carnivore is an enjoyable ride.

Dark, sharp, and wildly inventive, Carnivore by K. Anis Ahmed is a thriller that will leave you reeling long after you have turned the final page. Set in the ruthless world of New York’s elite restaurant scene, it follows Kash, a desperate chef whose spiralling debts force him into ever more extreme choices in pursuit of survival.

Kash’s dream restaurant, specialising in exotic meats, was once the talk of the city. Now, it is on the brink of collapse, and the loan shark Boris is circling. When Kash hears of an exclusive billionaires’ dinner club, he seizes on it as his last chance to claw his way back. But standing out among the ultra-rich demands something truly unprecedented. When Boris exacts a brutal punishment, Kash has a grim epiphany – one that will test every limit of morality and ambition.

Ahmed’s writing is visceral and razor-sharp, pulling the reader into a world where desperation and decadence collide. The pace is relentless, the atmosphere crackling with tension, and the descent into darkness both shocking and chillingly plausible.

There is a savage cleverness to this book, with its commentary on excess, greed, and the thin line between high art and horror. Kash is a fascinating character – both repellently ruthless and pitifully human – making his journey as gripping as it is horrifying.

Carnivore is a daring, brutal feast of a story, served with a generous helping of dark satire. It will definitely not be to everyone’s taste, but for readers who like their thrillers bold, bloody, and biting, it is an absolute triumph.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

4-4.5 star

Very enjoyable read. The flow of the inner dialogue was very entertaining and drawing the right balance of comedy and the story unfolding. Inventive story that played out well.

The reason for the 4 rather 5 was that there felt to be areas of jeopardy, particularly earlier in the book, that we just skirted over or almost dismissed out of hand. More could've been made of this to build the tension.

As someone who likes their meat, even I would balk at some of the foodtsuffs served at Hide -- an exclusive restaurant venture specialising in unusual, sometimes less than legal meats. But when the owner gets involved with a Russian gangster, his idea of what might constitute an exclusive and unprecedented meal grows to include a very particular kind of meat...

The question of morality hangs over this darkly humorous take on the food industry and the lengths those with money will go to in order to attempt things no normal person would consider. Kash -- the owner of Hide -- is takes us on a believable journey as he shows just how far one can stretch one's own morality to cater to the superrich and to get within reach of their world. This is a book about the American dream seen from the view of an immigrant, about how money creates more problems than it can ever solve, and about one can break taboos without breaking the law (or at least skirting it a little). Great fun, sharp as a chef's nice, and will either help you work up an appetite or ensure you never look at a plate of unknown meat the same way again...