{"id":3340,"date":"2023-12-14T18:18:07","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T18:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=3340"},"modified":"2024-01-04T16:40:43","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T16:40:43","slug":"butter-a-novel-of-food-and-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=3340","title":{"rendered":"Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A masterpiece, this is the dazzling tale of a gourmand and con-woman whose life opens up because of an intrepid, brilliant reporter. Manako Kajii is behind bars thanks to her multiple murders of forlorn businessmen whom she seduced with her cooking and promises of a traditional life together. As she famously states: \u201cThere are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine.\u201d And you can add a third: journalists, as she refuses to ever give any interviews. Until reporter Rika Machida comes along, herself a bit forlorn, and writes to Manako requesting her beef bourguignon recipe\u2014just don\u2019t call it beef stew!\u2014without any reference to Manako\u2019s lurid and extravagant past. Soon, Rika is visiting Manako in prison, where they cook and devour imaginary meals together, becoming totally immersed in gastronomic fantasies until we can only wonder: who is changing whom? While Manako provides the novel\u2019s spine, we also delve deep into Rika\u2019s world, the misogyny of her workplace, the loneliness of both men and women, her troubled family, the challenge of aging parents. Remarkably enough, this novel is based on a true story, \u201cThe Konkatsu Killer;\u201d check out more information on <em><a href=\"https:\/\/murderpedia.org\/female.K\/k\/kijima-kanae.htm\">Murderpedia.<\/a> <\/em>I cannot wait to discuss this in a book group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A masterpiece, this is the dazzling tale of a gourmand and con-woman whose life opens up because of an intrepid, brilliant reporter. Manako Kajii is behind bars thanks to her&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[163,53],"class_list":["post-3340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-book-of-the-week","tag-women"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Butter-400x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Butter-400x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Brian Kenney","author_link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?author=1"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}