To me, Butter by Asako Yuzuki is a compelling amalgam of crime fiction and cookbook.

It was a single sleeve quote from the novel that had Jack heading to the till in Waterstones:

‘There are two things that I simply cannot tolerate: feminists and margarine.’

And that, in a succinct nutshell, is the nub of much of the novel. Set in modern-day Tokyo, Butter explores the Japanese attitude to such weighty themes as misogyny, work ethic, sex discrimination, and body shaming, all ...