In Rebecca Kauffman's sixth novel, The Reservation, the staff members of a fine-dining restaurant each have a moment in the spotlight during the attempt to solve a theft.
Aunt Orsa's is the top restaurant in its Midwestern college town. The staff has been gearing up for one momentous fall day: author John Grisham has reserved a table for dinner for his entourage, and Orsa is desperate to make a good impression to counteract some negative online reviews. To her dismay, everything starts going wrong: 22 steaks are stolen, the dishwasher breaks, and there's an injury in the kitchen--not to mention the daily frictions among her employees. Pantry chef Shannon is jealous of host Julia. Server Byron is rumored to be writing a novel about his coworkers. Julia and Byron were dating until he posted a Photoshopped image of her on Facebook. Orsa's nephew, operations assistant Danny, has a crush on the Mennonite pastry chef, Jane. However, when she needs a favor she confides in the prep cook, Edgar, instead of in Danny.
Kauffman (Chorus; I'll Come to You) explores her characters' interactions and backgrounds with aplomb in linked short stories--a format she's employed several times. The table of contents is presented as a "Menu" with 16 chapters, each focusing on a different customer or member of staff via close third-person narration. A number of chapters could even function as standalone short stories, with killer last lines. Two standouts expose economic and social realities: Edgar has a second job at a poultry plant and sends most of his earnings home to his family in Guatemala; a pair of diners realize their addict son hasn't reformed after all when the restaurant gift card he gave them is exposed as fake.
For the most part, the mystery takes a backseat to the character studies. When the narrative does prioritize Orsa's amateur investigation, it can feel a little hokey; long dialogues working through her list of suspects entail too much spelling out, and there is also some repetition across the chapters. But it's a pleasure to go deep with each character, discovering hidden sorrows and motivations--especially Orsa's childlessness and lead line cook Glen's brain damage from a childhood accident--while awaiting the finale of "Grisham Day." The Reservation is a big-hearted novel perfect for J. Ryan Stradal's fans. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader, and blogger at Bookish Beck
Shelf Talker: Rebecca Kauffman's circadian novel-in-stories, a gentle mystery, spins character studies of the workers at a Midwestern restaurant coping with kitchen catastrophes and preparing to host John Grisham.