SSR 4th Quarter

If any of you have never heard about Anthony Bourdain before, let me explain real quickly. Anthony Bourdain gained notoriety when he wrote Kitchen Confidential, an intimate look at the restaurant business and his experiences in it. His stories are very colorful; he uses sarcasm and describes his experiences with Mafioso’s, Restaurateurs, Chefs, and bartenders.

His novel, Gone Bamboo, is written in much the same way. Gone Bamboo concerns an ex-mafia hetman named Henry, who goes to an island in the Caribbean to get away from his past, a man that he tried unsuccessfully to assassinate. Unfortunately for Henry, the US Government has other plans. The man that Henry tried to assassinate, Charlie Wagons is under the Federal Witness Protection program, until he can testify against his old cohorts, and he is being held under armed guard, right up the road from where Henry and his wife Frances live.

Henry and Frances befriend another younger couple, Tommy and Cheryl, who coincidentally live with Charlie, in an attempt to get closer to Charlie so that Henry can make his apologies for the past. Henry and Frances are almost assassinated themselves by a Mafia hitman name Little Petey, after the Mafia finds out that Henry is on the island near Charlie. They foil the assassin and kill him. That is only the least of their worries though, as a group of hired guns start a massive gun battle at the compound Charlie is staying at.

I’ll stop there as that is where the book starts getting good. I like this novel because it makes you laugh at some points, yet somehow manages to be serious when it needs to be. The characters are pretty developed, and when some die you feel for them to some extent.