Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Vera can’t remember the last time she had so much fun. People always say that your wedding day is the happiest day of you life, but honestly, people should try solving murders more often. Okay, well, “solving” is a bit of a stretch since she hasn’t quite yet figured out who the killer is, but she’s close. She can feel it.

You’ll know right from that tone–the conversational “okay, well…”, the colloquial vibe and narrative aside–whether you’ll let yourself have a little fun with Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers. It felt like the reading equivalent of bread before a meal; pretty good, why not eat it? Sure, you could be deep in something life-changing, but bread tastes good. I’ve never understood why people tell you not to “fill up on bread”–just bring your ordered entrée home and eat it later. Sometimes, simple carbs and pleasant company do the trick.

And it is simple. Big font. Wide margins. And it is pleasant. Cruising lane reading. The plot and the characters glide past, peppered with what feels like interesting bits of outside information that the author read recently sort of seeping in:

“Sorry, she’s…” She doesn’t know what to say. She’s shy? Yes, but apparently you shouldn’t say such things in front of the child, lest it become their identity.

The meta-level voice of the narrator breaks through the text, bringing in things like au courant parenting techniques straight from The Montessori Child; a loose understanding of NFTs (which will date this book like pogs, as they’ve already fallen from the zeitgeist by time of publication); and some reasonable feminist outrage to men-writing-women-poorly: “Julia wants to vomit. The way Oliver has written about her makes her feel so dirty and so small, like an inconsequential object.”

It also has a vague gloss of San Francisco, and that doesn’t work for me. Example: the dead guy had a house in Laurel Heights. Kudos for specificity, but given that even a 2-bedroom condo starts at $1.195 million U.S. dollars, it doesn’t quite fit. Whatever.

Seven hundred grand. That’s life-changing money. She could pay off the house and still have enough left over to put into Emma’s college fund…

Okay, not whatever. I wouldn’t scoff at that much cash, but “...Julia could easily pay anyone, now that the first installment check from Marshall’s life insurance has been paid out.” “First installment” means no lump sum, which means annuity, which means 700 thousand dollars over, what, thirty years—maybe two grand a month? The schedule is variable so it might be even longer, which means even less money per month.

I apologize for this devolving into a “How can the friends in the show Friends afford their loft apt?” outrage essay, but stuff like that, for a book set in “reality,” sort of bugs me.

Vera has the same sitcomy vibe as Friends anyway—it probably shouldn’t be held to any real-world factual standard. But the dead dude is basically a scam artist and the mom doesn’t work for money, and you meet a parent so you are aware that they don’t come from generational wealth…I dunno. For what it’s worth, the current cheapest house in Laurel Heights is listed at almost 3 million dollars.

But enough about housing. Worse yet is how the book did Ocean Beach dirty.

But here in San Francisco, no one is relaxed. Everyone is erging (why can’t they just freaking call it rowing?) and eating acai smoothies out of coconut-shell bowls, but they’re also yelling into smartphones and checking their Apple Watch every ninety seconds to make sure that they’re getting in their ten thousand steps while negotiating multi-billion dollar deals. And on the border of this bustling city, there’s Ocean Beach, the place where these techbros are supposed to go on their downtime.

Oh. Okay. So, if I’m being generous, the character that is thinking this grew up in Bali. So…maybe no one is chill in SF compared to Bali? Fine, I accept. For me living in SF after a decade in NYC, everyone is mega chill. I suppose “relaxed” is always a point of comparison. For the record, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tech vest or Apple watch at Ocean Beach. Surfing, old people power walking, kids learning to ride bikes on the Great Highway. I dunno.

That’s sort of the theme of this book– “I dunno” with a mild shrug. I liked all the people. They’re likable. The villain is comically despicable so no one cares that he’s dead. Vera herself…oh boy, somebody put their finger on it. She’s a treat. Who doesn’t love a bossy, nosy old lady? More Vera Wong in more books, please. But aside from being a vehicle for platforming Vera, there’s not a lot I cared about here. The plot felt secondary to Vera being Vera. The main cast of characters had just the right combination of skills and/or careers to help out: refurbishing the tea shop; muralizing the walls; lawyering each other up. There are so few actual people introduced that the “killer” has to be, at one point, one of three side characters–officer, tea shop customer, or business “rival”—and the reveal needed to be some sort of heretofore unknowable connection. I don’t think media needs to be a puzzle box, and I in no way require being able to figure out a whodunit before—in fact, what I like about mystery novels is shutting down my brain and just gliding along (if I want puzzles, I’ll play a video game)—but some people get a little antsy when the book zags in a way you couldn’t possibly have guessed.

I wasn’t sad that I read Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers. But I wasn’t particularly happy, either. Truly, this was my free basket of bread for the year.

Sometimes that’s all you want.