SYNOPSIS:
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.
REVIEW:
The day I finished this book I bought two other novels by Jesse Q. Sutanto and I’m hunting what else she wrote. I do have a weak spot for books that have this type of nosy old lady as a protagonist so I wasn’t quite surprised that I loved Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice For Murderers as much as I did. The fact that the author is also diving into so many different cultures through her characters also added to my delight while reading the book.
It’s been a while since I read Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice For Murderers and I’m still unable to find anything I did not like about it. The atmosphere, the mystery, all of the characters and the relationships between them, everything had just the perfect dose of comfort and thrill. I did feel my heart beating equally faster both when the action was becoming more intense and also when anything was threatening a new friendship between the characters.
I love how strong and uplifting the whole story was, despite each character carrying their own problems on their shoulders. Each of them could be crushed under the pressure, but the bonds that form between them empower them equally and lift some of the weight. Not all of it, but just enough to keep them going and to grow stronger with every day that passes. And that’s probably one of the most beautiful things that we see not only in books, but in daily life as well: how humanity is not defined by a multitude of people, but by the relations between them.
I also loved how visual the whole story was, without even using an excessive amount of descriptions. The moment I think about Vera’s teahouse I can envision it clearly, with all her ancient cabinets and windows darkened by time, on the quiet ethnic street with snoopy neighbours. Additionally, the narrative voice definitely has an accent, so it almost felt like I was listening to an audiobook in my head, rather than reading.
Really fun and lovely read! I haven’t checked any GoodReads reviews yet in order to be sure, but I highly doubt anyone could possibly dislike this book. I personally enjoyed every page of it!
