The Miracles of the Namiya General Store

In 2012, after committing a mischief, three young delinquents take refuge in an old abandoned shop to hide until the next day.

During the night, someone slips an envelope through the slot of the metal shutter. When they open it, the three companions discover that it contains a request addressed to the former owner, famous in the neighborhood for having given all sorts of advice to those who wrote to him.

But this letter was written… thirty-two years earlier. They decide to answer it and place their letter in the milk box at the back of the shop, as the old owner used to do.

Immediately, a new message arrives, also from the past… In the space of a night, of a journey through time, the three boys will thus influence the course of several destinies, and perhaps even turn their own upside down.

Admired for the perfect mechanics of his detective plots, Keigo Higashino makes an incursion into the fantastic and achieves a small miracle of a benevolent, touching and deeply humanist novel.

📖 The opinion of the Librairie du Grimoire Ancien

By our editorial & librarian committee

Keigo Higashino, master of Japanese thrillers, signs with The Miracles of the Namiya General Store, translated by Sophie Refle and published by Babel, a masterful incursion into the fantastic. This benevolent and deeply humanist novel explores the redemptive power of compassion and connection across time.

What makes this story magical is its ingenious narrative device: three young delinquents, refugees in an abandoned shop, inadvertently become the heirs of a former owner who gave advice through letters. When they discover they can communicate with the past (thirty-two years earlier), they embark on an epistolary exchange that will transform several destinies, including their own.

Higashino masterfully weaves several stories that echo and intertwine, gradually revealing how each act of kindness creates ripples that spread through time. The Namiya General Store becomes a sacred place where compassion transcends eras, where three lost young people find meaning in their existence by helping strangers from the past.

We recommend this novel to fans of humanist fantasy, to readers sensitive to questions of destiny and redemption, and to all who believe in the transformative power of kindness. A small literary miracle that touches the heart.

Our rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — A benevolent fantasy novel that explores the redemptive power of compassion across time.