If you're a reader of the Norwich Bookstore newsletter, you know that working here practically requires one to get into mysteries. (If you're not a reader of the newsletter, but you enjoy Enthusiasms, I [biasedly] recommend you give us a try.) Well, it took me about three years, but I now call myself a mystery reader.
It makes sense; I've been a romance reader for years and both genres (usually) offer a satisfying conclusion. Mystery is a vast genre, but here is my micro-niche: funny mysteries with a female "detective" who defies cultural expectations, has little or no experience in mystery-solving, and attracts a wide variety of well-developed side characters. If that sounds like your micro-genre, you may enjoy the latest mystery I devoured: Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, by Jesse Q. Sutanto*.*
Vera Wong is an opinionated widow with an absentee son and a failing tea shop named Vera Wang's World-Famous Teahouse (because she thought naming it after a famous fashion designer would attract more customers). Early one morning, Vera discovers a dead body in her tea shop. Clearly, murder is the only explanation.
Being an extremely helpful and competent citizen, Vera carefully examines the body, draws an outline around it, and calls the police. And then she steals some evidence. Not because she did it but because she's the only one up to the task of figuring out who did. When the police declare the whole thing an accident, Vera decides to post an obituary, certain that the murderer will return to the scene of the crime. The people who turn up at her shop are certainly connected to the victim, and lying about it, but as Vera grows closer to each suspect, they start to feel less like potential murderers and more like family.
I loved everything about this book. Vera is bossy, pushy, and has the best of intentions; she's the very definition of tough love. And the characters she collects, murderers or no, are all in need of some love (and a kick in the pants). Along with becoming a sleuth Vera finds herself cooking, matchmaking, babysitting, advising, and, ultimately, building herself a found family and solving everyone's problems, not to mention a murder.
Emma Kaas co-owns the Norwich Bookstore with her husband, Sam Kaas. When she’s not at the bookstore, you’ll most likely find her reading books, baking bread, tinkering with spreadsheets, or pulling tarot cards.