The sizzling promise of a crowded Manhattan kitchen, the hush of a clandestine billionaire supper — K Anis Ahmed’s Carnivore serves up a feast where ambition, hunger, and identity collide.
In this electrifying new thriller, out June 30 via HarperFiction, Ahmed invites readers behind the gleaming facades of New York’s elite dining scene — and straight into a chilling game of desperation.
The novel follows Kash, a Bangladeshi-born chef whose restaurant once thrived on exotic cuts and daring flavors.
But as debts mount and a Russian loan shark tightens the screws, Kash plots a bold gamble: infiltrating a secretive billionaire dining club.
“If Kash can get the gig,” teases the press release, “it would pay off Boris and then some.”
Boris, impatient and ruthless, delivers his own brutal ultimatum — severing one of Kash’s fingers, a maiming that becomes shockingly literal inspiration.
The high-stakes pitch to serve something “entirely unprecedented” raises visceral questions: What price do we pay for success? And how far will ambition stretch before yielding to violence?
A culinary thriller with bite
The novel has received strong early praise. The Observer (UK) has called it “deliciously dark.”
Vaseem Khan hails the novel as “a wicked take on the underbelly of the immigrant dream,” while Nina Badreshwar riffs on "The Bear meets Tarantino”, lauding its “richly detailed foodie world” and scathing satire of greed.
RS Burnett calls it “edgy, exotic, and unexpected.”
Born and raised in Dhaka, K Anis Ahmed has penned a collection of short stories, a novella, and a novel, published across the US, Bangladesh, and India.
Carnivore arrives in the UK and other markets (Australia, South Africa, etc.), with a North American launch planned for March 2026.
Its Dhaka paperback edition will be priced at Tk800 and will be available at Bookworm and
other bookstores.
