I definitely got lucky with this nicely humorous book which has a more serious plot line and a heart-warming theme, too.  

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers 
by Jesse Q. Sutano 
2023 / 
Read by Eunice Wong  10h 41m
Rating: B+ / cozy mystery 

Vera Wong owns and operates “Vera Wong’s World Famous Tea House,” a tiny tea shop in Chinatown of San Francisco.  She’s 60 years old now and lives alone in the rooms above it.  Except for phone calls with her son, Tilly, in Silicone Valley, has been alone and very lonely since her husband died quite a few years. One morning going downstairs to the tea shop, she finds the body of a dead man.  She is very curious, confident and self-motivated.  She snoops around before calling the police.  

Julia is married to Marshall Chen who treats her, and most people including his own toddler daughter, very badly. There’s no physical abuse but the years of grinding belittlement from Marshall has worn Julia down, Marshall left her the night before we meet Julia and his things are in the black plastic bags she’s already angrily packed.  

She, Riki, Olivier and Sana turn out to be Vera’s suspects because she has no use for the police. The suspect’s names and phone numbers were from the man’s phone Vera took while snooping.  

Vera Wong cooks lots of excellent Chinese food and generally plays the role of bossy Chinese mother to the X-generation suspects, all of whom seem to need one. 

Only once in awhile the almost-romances got a bit much, but that was light and temporary. The narrator is terrific.