C. Pam Zhang was long-listed for the Booker for her debut novel ‘How Much of These Hills is Gold’, but her latest left me a tad cold. Set in the near-future, a smog has spread across the globe, rendering all usual crops difficult to grow. People have had to adapt, not least the chefs. One such chef, working in London, sees a chance for a better life for herself when she gets a job working on a mountain top in the Italian Alps. The mountain is one of the few places in the world where blue skies are still visible and, consequently, has been co-opted by the rich. It’s an interesting set-up, but any satirical intent is undercut by the uninvolving storyline. That said, Zhang’s prose is dripping with sensuality, and if you’re looking for a dystopian tale that touches on the rhapsodic, then you can really feed your face here. RM

Published by Hutchinson Heinemann