Vera Wong is a lonely widow who runs a dying teahouse in San Francisco's Chinatown. She has one or two regular customers, a son who can't be bothered to text her back, and a rigid early-to-bed, early-to-rise schedule. When she comes downstairs one morning to find a dead body in her teahouse, Vera's quiet world is thrown into chaos, with lazy police (her words) and a slew of murder suspects, who swing by the teahouse in the days following the death. As she gets to know her suspects, however, Vera creates a new family for herself, one with adult "children" who respect their elders (read: they let Vera push them around), and a precocious stand-in granddaughter. One of them must be the murderer, and whichever one it is will break Vera's heart.
As much as this is a murder mystery, this is also cozy book about found family, which is a favorite of mine. Sutanto nailed the goofy overbearing aunties in Dial A for Auntie, and while Vera isn't nearly as wacky as those aunts, Sutanto has created another memorable set of characters here. I loved the relationships between the characters, and even if the ending stretched credibility a bit, I still enjoyed it immensely, and I'd love to read more about Vera and her cobbled-together crew.
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