I borrowed this audiobook from the library.
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Published: March 14, 2023
Summary:
A lonely shopkeeper takes it upon herself to solve a murder in the most peculiar way in this captivating mystery by Jesse Q. Sutanto, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties.
Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady—ah, lady of a certain age—who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to.
Then one morning, Vera trudges downstairs to find a curious thing—a dead man in the middle of her tea shop. In his outstretched hand, a flash drive. Vera doesn’t know what comes over her, but after calling the cops like any good citizen would, she sort of . . . swipes the flash drive from the body and tucks it safely into the pocket of her apron. Why? Because Vera is sure she would 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 knows the killer will be back for the flash drive; all she has to do is watch the increasing number of customers at her shop and figure out which one among them is the killer.
What Vera does not expect is to form friendships with her customers and start to care for each and every one of them. As a protective mother hen, will she end up having to give one of her newfound chicks to the police?
My thoughts:
I’ve been meaning to read this author for a while. And with the next Vera Wong book due out next month, it was just the push I needed. And now I’m kicking myself for waiting so long! I have completely fallen in love with Vera and am so excited I have another adventure with her waiting for me!
I have really come to love books with older protagonists and this one was just so fun. While I thought this would be all laughs and hijinks, much like the Finlay Donovan books, I found this to be a bit more rounded out, meaning there were laughs, but it also had an emotional depth I wasn’t expecting. I loved that there were multiple points of view here, allowing us to really get to know the other characters. The only downside to this being that I found myself coming to care for each of the quirky characters and kept hoping none of them would turn out to be the killer.
This cozy mystery was just the change of pace I needed after a heavy read and I cannot wait to pick up the next book in the series, Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping [on a Dead Man] – even the titles of these books brings a smile to my face!
Books in this series:
- Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice to Murderers
- Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping [on a Dead Man] – due out April 1, 2025
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