A review by james1star
The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai

hopeful reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillian UK Audio for accepting me to be a pre-publication reviewer of this audiobook. The narration by Hanako Footman was performed very well, it’s clear and pleasant to listen to. 

This book centres around a cute but mostly unknown Kyoto restaurant called the Kamogawa Diner where the father-daughter duo of Nagare and Koishi serve up masterful dishes. But this isn’t all they do because they’ve discreetly put an add announcing themselves as ‘food detectives’  where only those who truly need the service will search them out. It can be read as a novel in that the two main, and some other, characters return but each chapter does in essence read like a short story. Each of the six stories is split into two parts, the first where the customer arrives at the diner and explains to Koishi what the dish they need recreating is and why it means so much to them. They then come back in part two, are served up the dish and Nagare reveals how he went about investigating the dish and it’s ingenious recreation. This same pattern is prevalent in each story so you know what’s going to happen. Maybe some of the investigation leaves a little to be desired as Nagare just tells the customer how he did it where actually showing it might’ve been more interesting but the fast, and consistent, pace meant the book flowed well and I was still excited to hear how he recreated the dish. Something I really like is how each customer does have a different reason for coming there and it’s nice to see how experiencing the dish again helps them, be it thinking back and looking forward. 

Overall, this was a very decent read and one I’d certainly recommend. It’s easy to get through and on the whole is a pleasant reading experience. I am interested to continue with the series but as I wasn’t blown away it’s not at the top of my list. 
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