I maintain that this premise is amazing, and it needs to exist in real life. The idea of food I will never taste again HAUNTS ME. I am not even being dramatic, I am being so real with you right now.
(My #1 pick for this would be Pizza D’Amore’s piping hot square pizza slices, in the Paradise Valley Mall. AND I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE.)
I will also admit that the premise hit me so strongly that I gave this book more stars than it probably deserves. Objectively, it’s probably more like a 3.5 star book, rounded down. The father/daughter food detective team were written well, each “case” was interesting, but they were also written in a very formulaic way. Each story had: the client coming to the restaurant, eating a meal with a set menu that they end up loving, being ushered back to the office to meet with the daughter, each client remarking on the pictures of food that cover the walls, telling their story to the daughter, the daughter and father having a brief conversation after they leave, the story skipping forward to when the client returns to eat their rediscovered meal, them enjoying the meal and being so happy, the detectives explaining how they did their work and found the recipe, the client seeing the cat that isn’t the detectives cat and they always yell at it it’s weird, then father and daughter finish up by mentioning their dead wife/mother.
Literally I just described each of the stories, the only thing missing is the specific details of the food and client. This book was SO CLOSE to being something I would readily recommend, but that formula could be grating if you weren’t really into the premise, and it was pretty borderline even for me. But I love food, and I love detective stories, and putting them together is irresistible to me. This could have been utter trash and I would have enjoyed it. Luckily, it wasn’t, but unless you share my personal special interests, I wouldn’t check this one out.
Also, even if you do check it out, and you don’t really like the story, you will be VERY hungry afterwards, so just be prepared for that.
