Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers – Book Review

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.

Have you read Jess Sutato’s Dial A for Aunties yet? If not, you should read Dial A for Aunties!

Vera Wong is a typical Chinese-American sixty something year old woman, who owns a tea house that is basically non functional. But one early morning she discovers a body of a dead man named Marshall Chen lying on the floor of her tea shop. Though the police rule out as an accident, Vera believes that foul play is involved and she meets Riki, Sana, Julia and Oliver who all had some troubles and connections with Marshall, making each of them a likely suspect for Marshall’s murder. And Vera’s nagging style soon brings all four together with Vera.

This was really a quick read and interesting to read. There were some funny parts in the book which made me laugh out loud. The story is told from Vera’s, Oliver’s, Julia’s Sana’s and Riki’s POV and I really like Vera’s character in the story. I also liked the diversity of the characters in the story–Sana is Indian-American, Riki is Indonesian, Julia is Caucasian thus bringing much diversity into the story. I felt like I was reading a comic sort of mystery rather than a thriller and it was predictable as to what is going to happen in the end which lowered my rating to a four star. However, if you are looking for a quirky funny comedy cozy mystery then I recommend Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers. Worth four stars!