#25 In the Kitchen, by Monica Ali (Transworld Publishing)

Loved the set-up, loved the characters, loved the plot - didn’t like at all how the book progressed and ended.

Despite its critical acclaim, I wasn’t a fan of Monica Ali’s Brick Lane, the novel that catapulted her to national fame in the literary world, but it was enough to pique my curiosity when looking for the book that would take me to my quarter century this year.

In the Kitchen, much like Hearts and Minds, is a story of the seedier side of immigration and London life, focusing on a chef on the verge of opening his own restaurant who discovers a body…

A measure of how much I was enjoying things is that I demolished the first half of the novel in double quick time, reveling in getting to know the traits of the numerous nationalities and their roles in the hotel kitchen and how they interacted with one another.

Add in some unspecified goings on in a bedroom within the hotel and some well observed vignettes regarding the chef’s upbringing and history, and it was all combining to produce the best novel I’ve read so far this year - until the chef (and Ali) loses the plot.

Without spoiling the book by revealing what happens, things start to go wrong very quickly, and having invested so much time in believable characters, it’s a shame when they start to act in increasingly bizarre ways, and my interest quickly waned.

So, rating time:

#25 In the Kitchen, by Monica Ali (Transworld Publishing) - 6/10

Next up: Screen Burn, by Charlie Brooker (Faber and Faber Limited)

Click here for the full list of books so far, and their rating