Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (A Vera Wong Novel) Paperback – March 14, 2023

I truly enjoyed this story. I laughed out loud so many times. Our protagonist is such a memorable character. She is larger than life and no nonsense. The story begins with a dead body in a tea shop. Four prime suspects soon reveal themselves. The owner of the tea shop investigates the case as a murder, despite the police reporting the death was due to a severe allergic reaction. What a fun romp through these lives intertwined in mystery and intrigue. I highly recommend this book.

Sutanto does an excellent job of character sketches - Vera, Sana, Riki, Julia, and Oliver all felt very real and were described in a compassionate yet insightful, humorous yet realistic way. I almost never read mysteries, but a friend loved Vera and the writing of this novel so much that I decided to give it a try. The writing was wonderful, but I still don't like mysteries - I wasn't too engaged with the mystery and almost didn't want to know what happened to the unpleasant Marshall, which made reading slow. However, I did want to know how the characters came together so I persevered and I do think that if you enjoy cozy mysteries, you will love this book. The book was tightly plotted and easy to follow, but none of the "twists" surprised me. I thought they were foreshadowed very clearly, but I also spend a lot of time thinking and analyzing foreshadowing/red herrings/etc for my own writing. Finally, this book hit close to home as my own mother is a force of nature similar to Vera, and while I love and respect both of them, I found Vera's mostly off-page son the easiest character to empathize with! At one point I started imagining my mother's reaction to a dead body in her backyard, and the stress of that also slowed my reading! However, I heartily recommended this to my mom's book club as they were looking for a mystery... I'll be curious to see if she sees herself or not! Technically, I think this book was spot-on and if mysteries are your cup of tea, you definitely should enjoy stopping at Vera's tea shop!

I would like to have a meddling auntie like Vera to be brutally honest with me over wonderful tea and made- from- love family style meals. What a wonderful story of friendship and chosen family, mixed with a mystery murder and old-fashioned sleuthing.

Vera Wong Zhuzhu, emigrated to San Francisco with her husband, who died not long ago. So now, at age 60, she runs Vera Wang’s World-Famous Teahouse by herself. If you can call it “running.” Most days, she only has one customer.She still lives in the apartment above the shop. One morning, she goes downstairs to take her usual walk, only to find a dead body in her tea shop.It becomes apparent to Vera that the police are not taking the murder seriously. Certainly not as aggressively as an accomplished busy-body like Vera expects. So Vera starts investigating herself. It turns out the murder might be the best thing for Vera ever, as she becomes friends with most of the suspects.This mystery has a lot of humor. Vera has an acerbic wit and enormous hutzpah. Ex: “Oh, you young people take everything so personal nowadays. So what if I think you might be a killer? That doesn’t mean I think you are a bad person.”This was a quick enjoyable read. It’s character driven with a decent plot. 3.6 stars rounded up to 4 stars.Happy Reader

Vera Wong is a helicopter mom, neighbor, and teashop owner turned detective when a dead man turns up in her teashop. Vera gives a lot of unsolicited advice to anyone she interacts with. It may be a little too overbearing, but Vera means well. With Vera’s unapologetic personality, she has been able to meet new customers that may or may not be murder suspects and, along the way, get them to open up, help solve a murder, and eventually form meaningful relationships with each other. The ending of the book was just okay. The murder was determined, and I was so let down lol. Not who I was expecting, and I thought the reason for the murder was so dumb. It just didn’t make any sense to me at all.

This book was super! The cast of characters is fascinating - so unique and interesting. I love the way the author mixed the different cultures and personalities. All together a great book! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

A rollicking read! Equal parts humor and poignancy. Just read it, thoroughly entertaining and a bit surprising.ps: I wish there were recipes!!!

Testy and opinionated, Vera Wong lives a structured and lonely life in Chinatown, S.F., until a dead body winds up in her tea shop. She is intent on solving the murder, even when the police insist it isn't a murder. This doesn't stop her. Based on her knowledge of TV crime shows, she accuses four people who happenstance show up at the crime scene, her world famous teahouse.Vera is a crack up of a character and hard not to like. Even as outrageous as she can be, she brings the best out of people in a backhanded way. Especially little Emma. I loved their relationship. As each character is introduced, the reader learns a reason why they might be the murderer. While in your heart, you know none of them have it in them. Or do they? Unexpectedly, the group of four plus Vera become friends, almost family, enjoying the amazing cooking of Vera Wong. Of course, everything goes haywire and new friendships are broken. It takes an emergency to bring everyone back together. When the real killer is revealed, the gang is shocked.Recommended fun, older protagonist, who-done-it.