THE RESERVATION

A restaurant-based mystery reveals more than just the culprit in this sprightly drama.

On the morning of what promises to be a very busy day at Aunt Orsa’s, the only fine dining restaurant in a Midwestern town, a crime is discovered. Danny, the owner’s nephew, is making his usual health and safety rounds when he discovers 22 rib eye steaks are missing. The theft, on top of a slew of unusually harsh Yelp reviews, spells big trouble for the restaurant, a community staple largely dependent on business from the local university, which is set to host a famous visiting author that very night. The irascible owner, Orsa, is incensed and immediately starts an investigation. While the rib eyes do represent a financial loss for the restaurant, what bothers Orsa more is the timing. It seems like a deliberate sabotage, but who among the employees she thinks of as extended, if slightly disappointing, family could have it in for Aunt O’s? The investigation proceeds in vignette-style chapters that explore each character’s backstory, delving into their complex interrelationships and the baggage they carry with them to and from work every day. Is the culprit Jane, the Mennonite pastry chef, whose secret appointment after her shift necessitates a disguise she’s stored in her locker? Or Edgar, the hard-partying Guatemalan prep chef, whose car harbors a secret and a terrible smell? Is it Kenzie, a “real-life Barbie,” who is only waiting tables as a condition of her wealthy parents’ continued financial support, or Shannon, the bitter pantry chef, whose longed-for promotion to front-of-house is permanently delayed? As the day unfolds, replete with all the ordinary chaos of a busy service, the characters’ stories overlap to yield not only the answer to the mystery of the missing steaks, but also a tender tale that seeks the “immeasurable satisfaction” of an ordinary job well-done. In what is largely a light and funny novel, Kauffman nevertheless touches some of the deeper mysteries of the human condition: desire, longing, and an inchoate sense that there is something larger than our circumstances which binds us all together.

A book that proves light touches can leave lasting impressions.