Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers
Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady—ah, lady of a certain age—who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to. Then one morning, Vera trudges downstairs to find a curious thing—a dead man in the middle of her tea shop. In his outstretched hand, a flash drive. Vera doesn’t know what comes over her, but after calling the cops like any good citizen would, she sort of... swipes the flash drive from the body and tucks it safely into the pocket of her apron. Why? Because Vera is sure she would 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 knows the killer will be back for the flash drive; all she has to do is watch the increasing number of customers at her shop and figure out which one among them is the killer. What Vera does not expect is to form friendships with her customers and start to care for each and every one of them. As a protective mot
Where Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers keeps showing up
One of our editors' lists features this novel.
What you might want to know about Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Sixty-year-old widow Vera Wong runs a quiet San Francisco Chinatown tea shop her late husband loved, and finds a dead man on the floor one morning, clutching a flash drive. Vera pockets the drive before the police arrive and starts inviting his four young suspects upstairs for tea, one at a time.
It started as a standalone, but Jesse Q. Sutanto released a sequel, Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man), in 2025.
Yes. It has a body and a meddling amateur sleuth, but the tone is warm and comedic, with no graphic violence.
Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers was written by Jesse Q. Sutanto, published in 2023 by Berkley.
Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers is 368 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers is a standalone novel by Jesse Q. Sutanto, not part of a series.
Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.