Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Sutanto

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

My wife chose this book for our trip to the Utah Shakespeare Festival. As has been the case for the last three books, it turned out to be just a bit too long for our travel time. So, we had to finish it up after we got back. 

 

I had never heard of this book, but apparently it won some mystery awards. It is definitely a genre fiction sort of book, but one that is actually quite fun. 

 

Jesse Sutanto is from an immigrant family of mixed Chinese and Indonesian heritage, which is reflected in the characters in this book. She also clearly has a love for food - traditional Chinese food - which can be found throughout the story, even playing key roles in the plot.

 

Vera Wong is a widow of a certain age. She runs a rundown tea shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown - it really hasn’t made money in years - and is lonely and bored. She constantly texts her son - a lawyer who hasn’t yet found the right girl to settle down with, and who does not share Vera’s love for early rising. 

 

And then, one morning, she discovers a dead body on the floor of her tea shop. She calls the police…but not before pinching the USB drive in the dead guy’s hand, riffling through his wallet, and drawing an outline of his body in sharpie on the floor of the tea shop. 

 

She is convinced that Marshall Chen was murdered, that the police are incompetent, and that she will need to investigate the crime herself.

 

She places a death notice in the paper, making mention of where he died, and waits to see who comes to her tea shop. After all, the murderer always returns to the scene of the crime, right? It soon becomes apparent that Vera has watched far too much CSI and other copaganda shows, and has a rather, um, unrealistic idea about how all this works. 

 

But, she does get some new customers, all of whom are clearly hiding something. Sana claims to be a podcaster, but is really an aspiring artist suffering from block. Riki claims to be a reporter from Buzzfeed, but is really a computer programmer with a neurodivergent brother he wants to bring to the United States. Oliver is Marshall’s twin brother, and there was no love lost between them. Julia is Marshall’s estranged wife, and stands to receive a large life insurance payout. 

 

All four have motives to want Marshall - who turns out to be a real creep - dead. All four had the opportunity. But also, all four seem to be pretty decent people who lack the fortitude to actually kill anyone. 

 

Vera worms her way into the lives of all four as kind of a mother hen sort - plying them with food, charming Julia’s toddler Emma, and running roughshod over any boundaries they might consider having. 

 

The thing that makes this book fun is just how over the top Vera is. And yet also believable. 

 

There are some weaknesses in the book. I am pretty sure there is a continuity issue in who knows what when at one point. The characters are a bit one-dimensional other than Vera. And the emotional and relational landscape is a bit too simplistic. But this is to be expected in the genre. It isn’t literary fiction. 

 

One of these issues is that Marshall is a straight-up villain, and not at all sympathetic. Although, honestly, in our current political moment, I’m not sure he is truly unrealistic. It sure seems as though growing up with Trump must have been really unfun, and the long line of people he has used and discarded differs from Marshall’s only in scope. Marshall is a small-time scammer and narcissistic bully, not a trust-fund baby with millions to play with. 

 

I will also say that, having grown up in a family with certain members displaying traits of narcissism that got worse throughout adulthood, a lot of things felt all too familiar. Like Oliver, I became the scapegoat and black sheep of the family and was made responsible for the emotions of other family members. 

 

That said, the dysfunctional relationships in this book are simplistic and very black and white, so don’t expect true realism here. But it is the kind of book that it is. 

 

What is fun is the way that Vera just inserts herself into others’ lives, the way she finds her second wind by finding a purpose. And, of course the food, which sounds so very good. 

 

I’d rate the book a solid summer fluff read, and one that worked well as an audiobook on a long drive through the desert.