Review: Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (Vera Wong #1) by Jesse Q Sutanto

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Put the kettle on, there’s a mystery brewing…

Tea-shop owner. Matchmaker. Detective?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 things. Knowing she’ll do a better job than the police possibly could – because nobody sniffs out a 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:

Dear Jesse Q. Sutanto,

Your book was an upcoming pick for an online book club whose meetings I have yet to make, but I am finding plenty of fun mysteries to read by following their recommendations.

I enjoyed this story very much and mostly because of the main character Vera, whom I loved. As the book begins we see and hear Vera doing her morning routine and among other things complaining that her only son Tilly rarely if ever calls for advice from her.

“Well, no matter. Vera is a diligent mother and goes out of her way to give Tilly all the advice he could ever need anyway. Her previous texts are as follows:

Sent today at 4:31 a.m.: Tilly, are you awake? It is 4:31 AM, very late. When I was your age, I wake up at 4AM every morning to cook breakfast for Ah Gong and Ah Ma. Qi lai! Seize the day! Carpe diem! Kind regards, Mama.

Sent yesterday at 7:45 p.m.: Tilly, I notice that this girl @NotChloeBennet has liked TWO of your videos on the TikTok! I think this means she likes you. I look at her profile and she pout a lot, but I think she will make good wife. She went with her mother for manicure last week, this means she is a filial daughter. Perhaps you should slip and slide into her DM. Kind regards, Mama.”

“Vera had been particularly pleased about using the phrase “slip and slide into her DM.” Vera insists on keeping up to date with every trend. She doesn’t believe in getting left behind by the younger generations. Every time she comes across a nonsensical-sounding phrase, she looks it up on the Google and jots down its meaning in her little notebook.”

At the first glance Vera is mostly a pushy Chinese mom. I don’t know how well her character reflects a real, pushy Chinese mom, but I found her character very appealing and in some ways she reminded me of pushy Jewish moms. Yes, she would send her son all the knowledge she thinks he needs and she will take charge anywhere she goes, but she is a human being who cares deeply, who grieves for her husband who died not a long time ago and who misses her son.

And while her tea house may not have many customers recently, she knows the business of tea very well. The process of tea preparation was described a couple of times in some detail and it was clear that Vera knew and loved it.

She lives on top of her tea house and one day she goes down stairs to start her morning and she finds a surprise – a dead body. Vera is very excited because she watches CSI and other police shows and is determined to find the murderer even if police tells her that this may not have been a murder. Vera is determined to prove them wrong.

She also determined to find the suspects of the murder she thinks happened because you see, a murder suspect always comes back to the crime scene according to Vera and what do you know? Several young people come to Vera’s store after the murder took place. Vera befriends them all while trying to solve which one of them may have killed a man in her store.

She ends up having a found family in addition to her real one and I think I loved that part of the story the best. It was just so sweet, so full of heart in the best way. One of the blurbs on the cover I think says that the book is full of heart and I agree so much.

Vera was awesome, so full of life and so funny. I am looking forward to her new adventures.

I think the murder investigation aspect was actually a weaker storyline. Not because there was no investigation, Vera bless her heart did her best to investigate anyone but the real murderer as much as she possibly could. But the answer to the puzzle just comes to her at the end. I felt as if this could have just happened and no further investigation was needed if that makes sense.

Grade: B/B+

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