The Chef: A totally addictive psychological thriller with a shocking twist

ADVANCED KINDLE READER COPY REVIEWA totally addictive psychological thriller claims the front cover...always a brave challenge I feel.Robin Mahle is a new to me, new to the Joffe (rhymes with coffee) publisher that I am privileged to do advanced copy reviews for, but according to Goodreads she has over 40 novels to her name... 14 ( out of 33) chapters in and I can't help but feel she's still not mastered the art.I've been niggled throughout with the quality of the writing..for instance the main story revolves around a restaurant, it's owners and employees, unsurprising given the books' called "The Chef", so why do at least three characters call each other "chef" so often - is that normal, or is it just boringly confusing? I'm completely ignoring an early chapter introducing the various members of staff within a single paragraph - the "chef" title repeats more often than an aged sitcom on Dave. The early leads are the married restaurant owners Kiri and Dante...the opening chapters are given over to alternating first person narratives from them both, with a new "voice", that of master chef Marco coming in for Chapter 9, and again at Chapter 28 ahead of the denouement.I don't want to give away spoilers as there will be some out there that may like the book, and  not be bothered that none of the leads has managed to get me invested in them  almost halfway through. The restauranteurs are both shallow, he in particular lies and re-lies about what's going on around them but the consequences of his eventual confessions/undoing are minimal. They're clearly in debt beyond normal reasoning but continue to spend and act with impunity - even in America internal flights and overnight stays in the Napa Valley don't come free for instance but they're being planned with no hint of consequence or affordability...The latent love interests between them and the kitchen leads are unbelievable and trite...all the moreso given that  the chefs coming into their lives and their restaurant is also based on fabricated and partly exposed lies, poorly described and woefully executed. We know he's got a secret reason for being there and, at this stage, suspect he's taken drastic steps to secure the role, his being taken on so quickly is too fantastical for a serious read...I am giving up on page turning in favour of skim reading to the end in the hope that there is some logical reason as to why the hinted at skulduggery is both justified and reasonable...skim reading comes with the benefit that the tedious writing style can be largely ignored of course, in the hope that the bones of a better story can be picked out, though at this stage I will contend that the cover blurb is more than just a little inaccurately over stated...sadly going only one chapter on and there's a massive leap of faith where for the least of reasons the chef is being reported to the Police as a potential murderer...the Police don't bite of course - there's still too much book left for that...I however don't like it. It doesn't hang together and there are surely better books to read...if the second half is a massive improvement then someone else will have to advise us as 52% of the way in I'm out...