Culinary Noir: Get Jiro!, a Graphic Novel by Anthony Bourdain and Joel Rose

We were preparing updates for our July 2012 hardcover and paperback mystery titles and came across something we're quite sure we haven't seen before: culinary noir, in the form of a graphic novel, and more specifically Get Jiro! by Anthony Bourdain and Joel Rose, with illustrations by Langdon Foss.

In a not-too-distant future L.A. where master chefs rule the town like crime lords and people literally kill for a seat at the best restaurants, a bloody culinary war is raging.

On one side, the Internationalists, who blend foods from all over the world into exotic delights. On the other, the "Vertical Farm," who prepare nothing but organic, vegetarian, macrobiotic dishes.

Into this maelstrom steps Jiro, a renegade and ruthless sushi chef, known to decapitate patrons who dare request a California Roll, or who stir wasabi into their soy sauce. Both sides want Jiro to join their factions. Jiro, however has bigger ideas, and in the end, no chef may be left alive!

"I think the explosion of interest in chefs and restaurants is certainly easy fodder for satire," says Bourdain. "But my motivation was really nothing more than to help tell a story that would be fun, extremely bloody, beautifully illustrated — and insanely detailed as to the specifics of cooking and eating. I'm a big fan of classic Japanese cinema, Hammett's Red Harvest, spaghetti westerns and food — so these were obvious elements."

Get Jiro! has a publication date of July 3rd, but the publisher's website says that it should be in stores a week earlier.