Butter by Asako Yuzuki is a bestselling UK novel that blends crime fiction with culinary obsession. Inspired by a real serial killer case, it follows a journalist's correspondence with a convicted gourmet cook. Perfect for readers who enjoy transgressive, food-themed storytelling.
The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story, and translated by Polly Barton.
There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine.
Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation's imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can't resist writing back.
Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body. Might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought?
Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, 'The Konkatsu Killer', Asako Yuzuki's Butter is a vivid, gripping exploration of misogyny, obsession and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.
Asako Yuzuki was born in Tokyo in 1981. She won the All Yomimono Award for New Writers for her story, 'Forget Me, Not Blue', which appeared in her debut, Shuuten No Anoko, published in 2010. She won the Yamamoto Shugoro Award in 2015 for Nile Perch No Joshikai. She has been nominated multiple times for the Naoko Prize, and her novels have been adapted for television, radio and film. Butter won Waterstones Book of the Year 2024, as well as the Books Are My Bag Breakthrough Author Award the same year. In 2025 it was awarded Fiction Debut of the Year at the British Book Awards and was shortlisted for the CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger Award.
