Vera Wong Zhuzhu lives above her little tea shop in San Francisco's Chinatown, and has very few customers. However, the sixty-something widow DOES have a spunky, pushy attitude. When she finds a dead man in her tea shop one morning, she calls the police, but doesn't trust them to solve the murder. She puts an obituary in the local paper, and posts about it on TikTok and Twitter, believing that the killer will return to the scene of the crime. Before long, she has snared people who have come and paused outside the tea shop. As each comes, she brings them in to give them her excellent tea. She gathers them all together at the home of the dead man's widow, feeding them and learning about them, and especially gravitating towards the dead man's tiny child, bringing the clingy tot out of her shell. One thing that is clear almost immediately is that the dead man was strongly disliked. The people Vera has gathered all have their secrets. She lets them know that she considers them all suspects, but there's something about her that the suspects like, in spite of that.
This story has everything: murder, anger, good people who feel bad, people who feel stuck, people who look guilty but aren't, people who find "family" outside their family, good Chinese cooking, comforting tea, reunions, and a good share of humor. Lovely story!
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