Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto

If you’re in need of a delightfully offbeat mystery novel that will have you laughing out loud one moment and shedding a tear the next, look no further than Jesse Q. Sutanto’s debut “Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.” This tremendously fresh and fun novel introduces readers to one of the most lovably prickly amateur sleuths in recent memory – Vera Wong, a cantankerous Chinese American senior who runs a struggling tea shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown. When a murder literally lands at her doorstep one morning, Vera’s domineering mother-hen instincts kick into high gear, launching her into a zany investigation that will delight cozy mystery fans while tugging at their heartstrings.

A Killer Premise

The trouble starts when Vera descends from her apartment above her tiny tea shop to open up for the day, only to discover a dead body sprawled across the floor. In the stiff’s hand is a mysterious flash drive, which Vera impulsively pockets because, as she rationalizes it, what could the police possibly understand about the nuances of Chinatown crime? And just like that, Sutanto has laid the bait for a wickedly fun murder mystery centered around this brash but endearing busybody mother figure.

From that audacious opening hook, the novel takes readers for a wild ride through Vera’s guerilla investigation efforts. She’s convinced the killer will return to retrieve the flash drive, so Vera decides to go full Miss Marple, studying the quirks and potential motives of all the new faces suddenly showing up at her once-desolate shop. Using a lifetime of experience in shamelessly meddling in other people’s business, she begins probing the personal lives and secrets of her new customers, inserting herself into romantic entanglements, family dramas, you name it.

It’s a setup that allows Sutanto to indulge in all sorts of hilarious hijinks as the brash but well-meaning Vera bungles her way through sting operations and stake-outs. Yet even as the comical misadventures pile up, Sutanto keeps the central mystery tightly plotted and filled with constantly shifting suspicions that keep you guessing throughout. Just when you think you’ve figured out which sketchy patron is the culprit, Vera’s bumbling detective work takes another hairpin turn that leaves you joyfully back at square one. It’s a true page-turner from start to finish.

A Feisty But Lovable Sleuth

While the layered mystery at the center of “Unsolicited Advice” is engrossing fun, it’s Vera Wong herself who makes this novel an absolute must-read for fans of feel-good comic crime capers. From her very first brusque interactions, Vera immediately pops off the page as a hilarious blend of blunt insensitivity and fierce maternal loyalty. With her constant judgmental assaults on anyone’s life choices that don’t align with her harsh “tough love” wisdom, Vera can come across as downright monstrous at times. Yet Sutanto makes her utterly lovable by grounding her in the unshakable sense that her meddling and unsolicited advice (hence the title) always come from a well-intentioned place of caring for those around her, even total strangers.

As Vera’s investigation kicks into high gear, we get to see her softer side shine through more and more. In between scenes of her haplessly tailing suspects or barging into private therapy sessions, Sutanto reveals poignant layers of the burdens Vera carries as the child of impoverished immigrants. Her strained relationship with her wayward son and the quiet loneliness of running a forgotten tea shop counter her hilarious orneriness with equal depths of hard-earned empathy and striking vulnerability. By the final act, you can’t help but be utterly devoted to this brassy, complicated heroine and her makeshift surrogate family of oddballs who populate her shop.

A Richly Rendered Setting

While Vera’s voice and antics provide endless laughs, Sutanto’s success in immersing readers in the sights, sounds, and aromas of Chinatown is just as impressive. Drawing from her own experiences, the author fills the novel with vivid sense details and local textures that make Vera’s corner of San Francisco feel utterly tangible—the paper-doll figurines swaying in herbal shop windows, the cacophonous babble of locals gossiping in the street, even the savory scents of roasted meats and noodle broths that waft from nearby kitchen windows. Sutanto roots the novel’s offbeat murder mystery firmly in this richly realized setting, turning the streets and back alleys of Chinatown into characters unto themselves.

This strong sense of place particularly shines in Sutanto’s warm yet frank portrayals of the shop’s eclectic clientele of loners, weirdos, and outsiders that become Vera’s ersatz community over the course of the story. She renders them all, from the bitter divorcee book club members to the gangly home-schoolers, with acute observational detail and endless empathy. Their distinct personalities and mannerisms make each one feel vibrantly alive, and Sutanto’s gentle insistence that we embrace their peculiarities and failings is both hilariously relatable and deeply moving. By the time the mystery wrapped, I was as reluctant to say goodbye to this lovably dysfunctional found family as Vera was.

An Inventive, Heartwarming Mystery

On the surface, “Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers” follows a fairly standard amateur sleuth set-up – a brash busybody stumbles into a murder case and is suddenly running around playing private eye, inserting herself into legal investigations despite constant warnings to butt out. We’ve seen variations on this premise countless times in the cozy mystery genre. Yet it’s Sutanto’s ingenious wrinkles on this familiar formula, combined with her vibrant characters and rich sense of place, that elevate the novel into an absolute comic delight from start to finish.

For one, setting the mystery in the heart of modern-day Chinatown and making the prickly Vera both a cultural outsider (Malaysian-Chinese) and a member of the older generation gives the story instant dimensions of nuanced perspective on identity, generational gaps, and diasporic experiences. Sutanto mines endless humor and heart from Vera’s well-meaning yet antiquated views clashing with her younger customers’ vastly different life experiences and values. And by making Vera’s prime motivation a primal need to soothe her gnawing loneliness by forming new personal bonds, she infuses the murder plot with soul-nourishing warmth and emotional stakes that go far beyond solving a simple whodunit.

More than just a riotously funny murder romp, “Unsolicited Advice” leaves you cheering for this unlikely, rough-edged underdog to finally cultivate lasting human connections and find grace in her twilight years. Even as the laughs keep coming at a relentless clip, Sutanto keeps rounding out Vera’s character with subtle reveals about the disappointments and tragedies that have led to her isolation. So when the tightly-plotted mystery crescendos to a twisty climax, the emotional resolution lands with a well-earned sense of catharsis, as if Vera’s found the family she never knew she needed.

A Comforting Yet Surprising Gem

With its brash, instantly iconic heroine, ingenious blend of capers and workplace drama and heartwarming themes of second chances at human connection, “Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers” is simply one of the most nourishing comfort reads in recent memory. As a debut novelist, Sutanto has delivered one of the most self-assured and tonally deft comic crime novels I’ve read in ages, with her unique perspective and knack for balancing boisterous laughs and tearjerker moments marking her as a major new voice in humorous mysteries.

Yet for all the uplifting sentimental grace notes, Sutanto never lets the novel veer too far into sugary sweet territory, keeping things grounded with crisp plotting, realistically prickly characters, and an infectious undercurrent of screwball wackiness that owes as much to farce as it does to heartwarming drama. Perhaps most impressively, the central mystery surrounding the murder is constantly churning with fresh twists and re-directed suspicions that keep you guessing even as the story’s emotional core grows richer and richer.

It all adds up to a reading experience that feels like a warm hug and a belly laugh simultaneously—a rare feat in any genre. “Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers” is simply that unique of a gem, bursting with humor and humanity in equal measure. It’s the sort of book that reminds you why you fell in love with the comedy/mystery novel mashup in the first place—it transports you into a fully realized world, fills you with endless laughs, but then surprises you by revealing hidden depths of compassion you never saw coming. In short, it’s an absolute delight from start to finish that will having you clearing space on your shelf in hopes of more Vera Wong adventures to come.