Book Review - Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Title: Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (Vera Wong # 1)
Author: Jesse Q. Sutanto
Genre: Mystery
Published: 2023
 
Description: Sixty-year-old self-proclaimed tea expert Vera Wong enjoys nothing more than sipping a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy ‘detective’work on the internet (AKA checking up on her son to see if he’s dating anybody yet).
 
But when Vera wakes up one morning to find a dead man in the middle of her tea shop, it’s going to take more than a strong Longjing to fix thing. Knowing she’ll do a better job than the police possibly could – because nobody sniffs wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands – Vera decides it’s down to her to catch the killer.
 
Nobody spills the tea like this amateur sleuth.

Review: In this book we follow the titular Vera Wong, an elderly lady whose energetic routines and diligent internet snooping keep her young at heart. However her son and her potential clients at her tea shop are not very interested in it. With so little going on in her life, you can’t blame her to take matters into her own hands, when a dead man is found in her tea shop. Because she believes the cops are not capable of solving the crime, what is clearly a murder in her eyes, Vera decides she will solve it for them. Especially when the police claim it’s just an accident. Not one, but four people later show up at her shop, that try to find out what happened to the dead man. Making them potential suspects.
 
The book has some funny and hilarious moments, but is also heartwarming at times. Jesse Q. Sutanto wrote Vera as a meddling mother and combined this with her being a very sympathetic character. She is outrageous and arrogant, but also smart, caring and full of love. And this all makes Vera to a very loveable character. Sutanto added four more complex characters to the story, all with their own trauma. And together as a group they form a great dynamic, healing each other along the way. With Vera as the link.
 
The story reads from multiple perspectives besides Vera’s and I always enjoy this in mysteries. We get to learn about each character before the rest does and they are all interesting to read about.
 
The story has some moments that feel repetitive, especially at the start. And there is a romance in it that felt a bit forced. I also found the eventual culprit a bit predictable, even though the revealed link I didn’t guess.  
 
“Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers” is a funny, cozy mystery that I really enjoyed for the majority of it. It’s the first book in a series, the sequel will come out in 2025. And I think I will be picking that up as well.
 
Rating: 3,5/ 5