Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers - Jesse Sutanto

Description

The new must-read cozy crime mystery from the bestselling author of Dial A For Aunties 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.

Knives Out meets Kim’s Convenience for anyone who loves solving mysteries by Richard Osman and Janice Hallett, and watching Death in Paradise and Midsomer Murders.

Review

An enjoyable and amusing read.

I was drawn to this book title and the fact that it involved the owner of a tea shop. Not much other than Vera finding a dead body in the tea shop happens in the tea shop though, as Vera only has one customer!

Vera is 60 - described as elderly - so if you identify with that age group you may think differently. Otherwise I loved Vera, she is a no nonsense straight talking lady with firm ideas about what needs to be done. She's not too clued up on police procedure though, evident from her actions when she discovers the dead body. However, Vera thinks otherwise and is determined to help the police, who in her opinion don't have a clue.

One by one Vera makes a list of suspects and then befriends them. She cooks for them, match makes for them and generally takes over their lives, but in a nice way. There are plenty of descriptions of the teas Vera makes, but it was the food that I found intoxicating. I just need Vera to pop round and make it all for me.

Very funny at times and then at others a little sad. I felt it dragged a little in the middle, and wondered why the story was meandering so much. Of course a few more things get revealed along the way and the ending was just ingenious.

I'm giving this book 4 out of 5 stars. My thanks to netgalley for the ARC to review.

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