Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q Sutanto

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q Sutanto

Jesse Q Sutanto has written a ton of books. She even has six already announced and scheduled to come out between 2026 and 2027. Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers was published in 2023, now has a sequel, and may even get it's own adaptation (although I can't find any recent information about it, so maybe not). It is a USA Today Bestseller, an Edgar Award Winner for Best Original Paperback for 2024, a Libby Award Winner and an Audie Award Winner for Mystery, and is an Amazon Editors' Pick for Best Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense. It deals with domestic abuse, toxic relationships, murder, bullying, abandonment, and death.

Vera Wong lives above her teashop in San Francisco's Chinatown and she gets up every day at 4:30 am. One should not sleep their life away. She has a regimented schedule: get ready, apply sunscreen, powerwalk, return to her shop to prepare for her single customer to come in the morning. But one morning, she comes downstairs to find a dead body lying in the middle of the floor - probably the same body that broke down the front door (ostensibly before dying). She does her civic duty and calls the cops but she does not like the way that they handle the crime, or they way they talk to her. Deciding that she can do a better job of investigating what is very clearly a murder, Vera Wong sits back with her notebook and waits for the murderer to return to the scene of the crime.

I started this book in good spirits. Sutanto was very good at painting a picture for me, I could see Vera powerwalking down the road in her visor. I could feel the light irritation coming from Tully as his mother texted him in the morning. The whole thing went downhill from there, but it was gradual descent. The writing was not terrible, but I would say that it felt juvenile. I could walk into a high school and find the same caliber of writing in a student essay. The characters were mostly one dimensional and nothing about their relationships felt genuine to me. But again, it was mostly fine. It was just meh, bland. The last 10% of the book was not a gradual descent but a downward plunge that left me angry. I did not like the end of this book. Full stop. It felt contrived and, quite honestly, it made me want to throw something. I'll leave it at that.

I'm giving Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q Sutanto 3 stars out of 5, and that's really for the first 90% of the book. I won't be reading the sequel.

For more from Jesse Q Sutanto, check out https://jesseqsutantoauthor.com/

Pairs well with braised sea cucumber with mushrooms and a visor to prevent skin cancer.

My favorite quote:

"...and as a Chinese mother, Vera has had years of practice at harboring unrealistic expectations."