Review: Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (Jesse Q. Sutanto) I wanted a light-hearted book, and this recommendation from my September TBR subscription was promising. At first, I felt is was a bit labored in its presentation of a "typical aging Chinese mother" all alone in her neglected tea shop in San Francisco, feeling unappreciated by her only son, with a whiff of superiority in her view of others, a know-it-all. But this became such a great book, with a great plot that you don't actually put together until the very end. Vera comes down to her tea shop one day to find a dead man lying on the floor, having crashed through the window. Vera takes a flash drive from the dead man's hand and doesn't let the police know about it, as they are quite obviously incompetent; she then sets about to solve the "obvious murder" of Marshall. Soon she is surrounded by "suspects"...each of whom has reason to detest this man, and each of whom had contact with him the night he died. Along the way, these four, and the toddler Emma, morph into a sort of family, none wishing that any of them is the actual murderer. And Vera, smart and nosy and take-charge and funny, is the linchpin of the tale whom you can't help but love, just as you end up caring about every character whom Marshall has wronged. Charming read with so much wit and wisdom! I would have given this a 9/10 had that option been possible.

on the bench near the entrances