Genre - Mystery

If you already know and love Vera Wong (I did) from Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murders, you will want to follow up with Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man) by Jesse Q. Sutanto. Once again, because of her compulsive yet lovable nosiness, Vera finds herself smack dab in the middle of a murder investigation. And because, after all, she’s already “solved” one murder, who better than she to find out what happened to influencer Xander Lin? Though she drives her friends and family crazy and finds out more about the world of social influencing than she would (once again, very quickly she is an expert), Vera persists in finding answers.

Sutanto demonstrates the ability to balance very serious subject matters with lightness and humor. The young kids in this novel have been unspeakably abused. The character development is strong and such that I felt overwhelming sorrow for their pain and disdain that such crimes can and do happen. She builds the story in such a way that the reality she presents creeps up on us with a bit of gentleness that maybe we don’t deserve. We are encouraged to take societal horrors very seriously. Through Vera and her involvement we are encouraged to take ourselves a little less seriously.

I love Vera’s indomitable spirit. She has been lonely and has felt unproductive. She has no desire to return to that life. She revels in her new found friends and self made family. But she can’t resist when a new mystery presents itself in spite of the concerns of those very same people. Of course she wants to help, but also she wants to feel useful and prove her worth. People, especially women since that is my area of experience, can get lost in the shuffle around middle age fairly easily. If you’ve built your life around your children and your spouse as did Vera- empty nesting and widowhood can be even more difficult. Vera refuses to give up and settle down. She is driven to help others. I admire that and fully understand how her…perceptions of danger and appropriateness…can drive her loved ones quite nuts. I wish you’d read Jesse Q. Sutanto’s Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (On a Dead Man).