Take-Out is a collection of 16 stories of culinary crime and noir.

This book was not what I expected, it was even better. Well written and easy to follow it's one book I will read over and over again.

I really love anthologies. They give me a chance to read and retain what I have read when I'm travelling. It's too hard to read a few pages at a time in a full length novel. They also showcase an author's skills, letting them flex their writing muscles into differing genres. In Take-Out, Rob Hart gives us many more reasons to enjoy his work. The stories cover a wide range of characters in the food service business, all starring characters both entertaining and detailed, you'll recognize them as people you meet every day. This skill is very hard to obtain when working with short stories. You'll appreciate each story and love the book as a whole.

Thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity to read this book! I appreciate the kindness. <3

Has some genuinely laugh out loud moments as a teenager I worked in food service so I could relate I thought it was a fun read well written Woody at times

Rob Hart has created a new genre - food noir! In Take-Out, you will find 16 tales of crime and food. There is the bagel maker and organized crime figure taking on a real estate agent. There is a drone delivery service gone wrong. And do not miss the taco truck owner confession story. But the final story takes the cake with a foodie criminal at Singapore food court. If you enjoy crime and food, take the time to enjoy Take-Out! You will find something to sink your teeth into!

Thanks Netgalley for the chance to read this story collection!

Food and crime is an interesting combination. Meals and recipes are used to advance the plot of a story and in a way, define, and humanise the characters. These characteristics make Rob Hart’s collection of sixteen stories a provocative journey straight into the depths of a pleasurable – or less pleasurable – darkness.

Most of the stories have been appeared previously in mystery and crime anthologies and periodicals. Three of them have never been published. New York appears to be the the city where these two passions – food and crime collide. Life and death are often intertwined, you never know “when you were having your last meal,” and it is this that “speaks better than anything else could, to the gravity of a good meal.” Food becomes an important experience, sometimes a macabre one.

Hart’s world take place at the back alleys and sound-proofed rooms, at bagel shops and at food trucks, at home kitchens and street market stalls. There is a variety of interesting characters some are vicious and grotesque, others are sensitive and simple, victims of the moment and the circumstances.

All sixteen stories are witty, complex, curious, sometimes surreal, but I particularly liked the Creampuff and Have You Eaten?.

Loosely tied together by the theme of food, the sixteen stories contained in Take-Out vary from crime stories to humor.

While I enjoyed reading all the stories, my favorite was “The Gift of the Wiseguy”. It’s the story of a Mafioso’s son who writes a memoir. His father had ratted out his colleagues and entered witness protection twenty years earlier leaving his family behind. This story has crime, twists and pathos. The characters are well-defined with clear motivations. Due to its length, not a word is wasted. Many of the other stories are also great reads.

Take-out is highly recommended to thriller readers. 4 stars!

Thanks to Polis Books for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review, which has not altered my opinion of this book.

While I've been getting into short stories lately, any short story collection about food is going to grab my attention right away. Like I would want to say no to murder and mystery and thriller stories that include food! While I won't be doing a review of each story, I will say that there were many that stood out to me as very well done! I think my favorite aspect of these short stories are that each one was so different yet still concentrated on the aspect of humans and food and our need and reaction to food.

Overall, 4 out of 5 from me. I really enjoyed the stories, but there were a lot of them and not all of them agreed with me.

"Take-Out" by Rob Hart.

4 stars.

I wasn't sure what to expect and I loved it!

Many short stories, crime stories, with food! Sounds weird but I can assure you it's good! Easy to read, captivating, well written.
I especially liked Last Request, Drone and Have You Eaten? Well, no I loved them all!
As they are short there is no time wasted, straight to the point, action starts right away. No waiting half a story for something to happen!

Thank you NetGalley and Polis Books for the ARC of this book. This is my honest review.

Rob Hart is an author I’ve been hearing a lot about over the last few years, so when Take-Out And Other Tales Of Culinary Crime came across my radar it seemed like the perfect chance to see what this guy was all about. I’m a bit of a foodie (well, less so these days now that money is tighter and free time is so much shorter and harder to come by), and back when we had cable Food Network was the go-to station for my wife and I. Anthony Bourdain and his Travel Channel series, No Reservations, was appointment TV, and we had no problem spending a weekend hooked on marathon blocks of his global eating adventures, waiting for a new episode of Iron Chef America to air. I love food. I’ve also developed a soft spot for food-driven narratives, from Bourdain’s own Kitchen Confidential and Medium Raw to Cassandra Khaw’s urban fantasy series involving Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef. So yeah, an author I’ve been wanting to read releasing a collection of food-centric crime stories seemed like a no-brainer, and adding Take-Out to my steady diet of books was a pretty easy decision to make.

Thankfully, Take-Out fully delivered on my expectations. Starting almost from page one, Hart knew what I wanted, and the Bourdain epigraph fronting these stories set an immediate mood and tone, which Hart continued to emphasize in his introduction where he discusses the importance of good meals. Not just as a physical requirement, but on a deeper, almost spiritual level. We build memories around food, plan dates around particular meals and special restaurants. There are few things in this world as emotionally and physically satisfying as a perfectly cooked meal, few things as rewarding as delicious comfort food, few things as powerful and wicked as a high-sugar, high-fat confection.

Maybe that’s why food pairs so well with crime. Food is exciting and when done well can instill remarkable passions. It’s no wonder the mafia was fronted by so many restaurants, or why ice cream trucks are the perfect delivery vehicle for…well, we’re not going to talk about the ice cream trucks. Those drivers are freaking dangerous.

Over the course of these sixteen stories, Hart delivers straight-up food warriors, the men and women on the frontlines of their kitchens or food trucks, drawing overt connections between the culinary and the criminal. We get warring food trucks, escaped convicts on the run, a dead baker bouncer, and Times Square actors dressed as knock-off cartoon characters vying for tips and drug sales. Other stories are softer meditations where food provides the backdrop for deeper reflections - take for instance the aging mobster in “The Gift of the Wiseguy” who escapes witness protection one last time to see his son make good on the family name, delighted to rediscover his mother’s lasagna after so many years away. Food connects people, like Cynthia Marks, a prison guard who has made a deep connection with a death row inmate in “Last Request” and goes out of her way to bring him his last meal in the form of a pizza slice, but not just any pizza - a New York pizza! In “How To Make The Perfect New York Bagel,” the opening story in Take-Out, a decades long friendship was formed over this titular food.

While Take-Out serves up plenty of straight-up crime and noir stories, there are a couple cross-genre standouts, like “Lake Paradox,” which is driven by the absence of food and the craziness an empty belly can cause. “Butcher’s Block,” one of my favorite pieces, takes the concept of televised competitive cooking and warps it into a work approaching survival horror. Imagine if Alton Brown went completely mental, got coked up while watching Fight Club too many times, and decided that Cutthroat Kitchen needed a more literal interpretation for broadcast. That’s “Butcher’s Block,” and hot damn did I ever enjoy that one.

As is the norm with the majority of short story collections, I liked some stories more than others. That said, I can’t honestly say there’s a bad one in the bunch here. Each one of these morsels are pretty damn satisfying and enjoyable. Take-Out ends on a note that’s even a bit of a trip down memory lane for me, involving a character of indeterminate criminality on the run in Singapore. When my wife and I were dating, we went to Singapore for a wedding and were introduced to a number of that country’s culinary specialities. One of the very first dishes I had after landing was a rice noodle dish called char kway teow, a dish Frederick is enjoying as, presumably, one of his last meals in Singapore. I couldn’t help but smile over the fondness I developed for that dish myself, knowing exactly what he was experiencing as I read along, a smile that widened upon mention of the fish head curry in Little India, a phenomenal dish our friends treated us to early on in our visit.

Rob Hart knows his food and his foodie destinations, but more importantly he knows about the bonds and memories that develop and solidify over a good plate of food. We all have those special dishes we hold near and dear to our hearts, and Take-Out exploits this in the best possible ways. The fastest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, after all. Because we know the food at the heart of these stories, by extension we know the characters. Even if we can’t always relate to or condone their actions, we can understand their motives and their passions.

“Meals make the society,” Bourdain said in a 2001 interview with BookPage. “The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself.” Hart understands and shares this sentiment, delivering on it in story after story. The theme of food is merely the vessel in which these stories are served, but the meat of each of these dishes ultimately has little to do with the food itself. Hart’s just inviting us to the table and sharing with us a buffet of flawed characters in dangerous situations, exploring their lives and complications through a universally relatable theme, and doing so fully, with no reservations.

This collection of short stories was a lot of fun to read.
I liked the style of writing and I like how the stories were developed.
They are engaging and entertaining, once you start reading you cannot put the book down.
I look forward to reading other books by this author.
Recommended!
Many thanks to Polis Books and Netgalley for this ARC

Thanks to the publishers for sharing this one. I really liked it, and will look out for more books by this author. My full review appears on Weekend Notes.

This compilation of short stories is essentially food-related. I enjoyed most of the stories ; however, a few were difficult to comprehend at the end. (Could be me?) Some stories touched on nostalgic tones & a few were even Stephen Kingesque. The moral of the story - honesty is (usually) the best policy.

All in all, a fun read!

Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for a good read.

Take-Out is a collection of dark culinary tales that were entertaining and quick to read. I hope to read more from this author.

With 16 tales to offer, Take-Out has something for everyone. Each a little twisted and dark, they bring us to the places where food and people meet. Food can bring people together, it can cause pain when taken away, it can be how we show love, it can be used to feel better after a shitty day. Throughout his stories Hart explores the gritty, dark and sometimes funny aspects of human nature. He uses the world around him as his muse. From Butcher's Block to Swipe Left, he takes current issues and puts his own spin on it. He shows how the ugliness of society has always been there, once before it was the mafia, now its corporate greed. He asks the hard question; What length would you go to, to be able to start again? And just when you think it's all dark, you come across Creampuff. A feel good tale between the criminals and low lives.

I had 4 firm favourites in this collection.
Take-Out - This was just a good story from start to finish. It was clever, tricky and there were no good guys.
Last Request - The tale in which a woman is so miserable, so sad and treated so badly by the men in her life, that a death row inmate starts to look appealing.
Foodies - Short and sweet, I was pretty sure I knew where this was heading the whole time, but still a great play on people's need to EXPERIENCE food.
Confessions of a taco truck driver - From the very first page it had me hooked.

Overall the writing was solid. Some stories flowed better than others, there was a bit of repetition between the stories, with wording and subjects. But Hart was able to build tension, when I knew exactly what was going to happen. Some of the lines made me stop and laugh.
I think with books like these, not every story is going to work for you, I had a few I loved and some I didn't care for at all. I would have liked for a few more of the stories to have been my thing.

I received an e-arc from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Title: Take-Out: And Other Tales of Culinary Crime
Author: Rob Hart
Released: 15th January 2019
Publisher: Polis Books

I really enjoyed this collection of stories. been a few years since I’ve read a collection of short stories. For me, anyway, I have to be in just the right mood.
Hart’s prose is concise, somewhat stark, with just the right amount of description, and let’s the story play out for you to feel the underlying emotion. Each story has something to do with food, and it could just be a passing observation to a metaphor to a character within. And, if you’ll allow me, these stories all convey their own flavors, from savory to burnt to dry to comfort to sweetly sticky.
I enjoyed them all, a quick peek into others’ universes, but I particularly like “Last Request”. Perfect beginning through to the end.
Highly recommend, and look forward to reading more by Rob Hart.

I tried to like this book, but I just could not finish it. The stories were not well written and they did not grab my attention.. Good idea, but poorly executed.

I was excited to have the opportunity to read an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book on NetGalley.

“‘Look, nobody hanging out in Times Square dressed like a muppet is doing it because they’ve made good decisions. I’ve got a proposition that’ll make you an extra couple of bucks. Low impact, low risk.’“

TAKE OUT AND OTHER TALES OF CULINARY CRIME features stories that first appeared in well-respected crime publications such as Thuglit, Shotgun Honey, and Mystery Tribune, as well as three previously unpublished pieces. Also included is a story from the world of Hart’s awesome Ash McKenna series, “Learning Experience,” in the point of view of Ginny Tonic, the fabulous transvestite crime boss who happens to be one of Ash’s childhood friends.

My favorite stories in the collection are follows: “Creampuff” proves that personality rules in the cutthroat world of bakery bouncing. In “Bhut Jolokia” revenge is served super spicy. “Knock-Off,” the source of the quotation, gives a behind the scene look at the world of the costumed performers of Times Square, who bust their furry butts for tips.

This great crime collection had me hankering for a trip to New York City to enjoy all of its culinary delights and its gritty undertone of violence.

Sixteen tales of twisted modern noir. They do center around a food theme, but they are still dark and twisted. From mafia shakedowns to last death row requests to ferocious bakery lines to food channel cook offs gone psycho, Hart gives us a whole lot of fun. Dig in.