Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice For Murderers

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice For Murderers, by Jesse Q Sutanto, is full of all the delicious food, meddling aunties, and murder that we expect in a Sutanto book. When Vera finds a dead body in her struggling tea shop, she snaps into Chinese-mother action by bossing the cops around, making loads of food for everyone, starting her own investigation when she thinks the cops aren’t working enough like a cop show…  and maybe grabbing a little evidence off the body…

Dial A for Aunties, by the same author, was just a stunning read for me, I kept turning pages like No! That did NOT just happen! I can’t believe she went there! The blend of murder and meddling! The mashup of romance novel and dark comedy! It was just amazing. Then I liked Four Aunties and A Wedding (that’s Dial A for Aunties 2), Well, That Was Unexpected, and now Vera Wong just fine. These ones are more madcap adventures, after the mashup perfection for Dial A For Aunties, and you kind of have to roll with the low stakes and goofy fun.  In Vera Wong, readers won’t worry for a moment about catching the murderer, the success of Vera’s teashop, the romances, or anything bad happening to our characters.  Which is a perfectly good story — what if a nosy old lady bumped into a bunch of struggling young people and bossed them into success? Also, there’s dead body. There’s no real tension in this story, which doesn’t mean there are no surprises.

Just roll with it for a gore-free, zany murder investigation. I loved Vera’ s plans to host a Poirot-style drawing room reveal, with all the characters eating a massive meal, of course.  I absolutely loved one of the minor characters, Officer Gray, who just wanted to have a normal workday without a random auntie forcefeeding her tea and complaining that she’s not enough like an episode of CSI. I have to say wasn’t a fan of all the subplots. (I always gag at writer’s block as a trope in fiction, and I double gag at characters suddenly unblocking into a lucrative creative career.) The twist ending is clear almost from the start, mostly from clever foreshadowing (and a little because, like in The It Girl by Ruth Ware, there are only so many characters, so there are only so many possibilities). That was a bit disappointing for me because I spent literally every page of Dial A for Aunties and The Obsession with no clue what could possibly happen next.

It’s strange to say this is a solid addition to the nosy-aunty cozy mystery genre, because is that even a genre? Is it a real thing, or have my reading tastes gotten too specific?

Anyway, Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice For Murderers was such a fun read, but it can’t possibly compare to the amazing can’t-stop-reading of Dial A for Aunties and The Obsession.

If a not-at-all-gory murder mystery with a nosy aunty and loads of tasty food sounds good, try Aunty Lee’s Delights by Ovidia Yu, too.

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice For Murderers is written by Jesse Q Sutanto and will be published by Berkley  on  March 14, 2023. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC. All opinions on my book blog are my own, as always.