The Kamogawa Food Detectives is a Japanese contemporary fiction novel, which is especially perfect for fans of the series Before the Coffee Gets Cold. This short novel includes six individual stories, of which my personal favourites were "Tonkatsu" and "Nikujaga". Customers are drawn to this café come detective agency to rediscover a dish from their past and many lessons are learned along the way.
I did particularly enjoy the translation as I found it especially British, in terms of sayings like "a bit of a faff" and "old codger", which definitely made me chuckle. I was surprised by the wonderful humour in this book, and the best part of the story was the brilliant father/daughter relationship of Nagare and Koishi, who own the Kamogawa Diner.
This book is the definition of cosy; for instance with the heartwarming element of asking customers to pay however much they can afford for the service. Although I do wish Drowsy the Cat had a bigger part to play in the story seeing as he's the focal point of the cover!
There are difficult themes in this story, in particular grief. The book really highlights real human experience and I found the ending to be incredibly emotional, specifically the last conversation between Nagare and Koishi.
I adored how the book wrapped up but I am hoping that more of the series will get the chance to be translated into English as I would love to read more of the Kamogawa Food Detectives (and Drowsy!).
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5

Thank you to NetGalley, Pan Macmillan and Hisashi Kashiwai for the opportunity to read this advanced reader copy.