Books Like Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

Amateur sleuths who adopt their suspects and aunties who insist on helping.

Vera Wong warns her son that eating dinner late is what killed Uncle Lin. Her son remembers a bus. When a man turns up dead in her San Francisco tea shop, Vera puts the same faith in her own judgment. She pockets his flash drive, feeds the people who might come looking for it, and gets rather attached to them.

If you miss watching Vera fuss over people she ought to be interrogating, start with the aunties or the three girlfriends below. The cases here run from a missing guest at a French B&B to child abductions in Deadwood.

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01
Dial A for Aunties
by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Start with Sutanto’s other busybodies. When Meddy Chan’s blind date ends in an accidental killing, her mother and aunties get straight to work. The body winds up in a cake cooler at a wedding they’re being paid to run. They still have a job to do, and Meddy still has to face the college boyfriend she never got over.
This is the closest match for Vera’s way of showing affection by taking charge. The farce gets louder, and the opening involves an attempted sexual assault.
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02
Merit Badge Murder
by Leslie Langtry
Merry Wrath used to work for the CIA. Now she leads a Girl Scout troop in Iowa, which is where a dead enemy agent turns up. She covers him with a games parachute and gets the girls busy with something else. In Merry’s experience, the Girl Scouts require more paperwork than the CIA. Expect spy trouble and some strong language.
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03
This Pen for Hire
by Laura Levine
Jaine Austen usually writes ads for Toiletmaster Plumbers. A love letter ought to be a pleasant change. Then the woman she wrote it for turns up dead, and the man who paid for it becomes the chief suspect. Jaine feels responsible enough to start asking questions and makes up her own credentials to get answers. The murder weapon is a Thigh Master.
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04
Death and Croissants
by Ian Moore
Richard Ainsworth runs a B&B in the Loire Valley and wants very little from his guests. Leaving a bloody handprint and vanishing is quite a lot. Another guest, Valérie, insists they investigate. The dry jokes and the company are the reasons to stay, though the book does kill off Richard’s hen Ava Gardner.
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05
The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club
by Gloria Chao
Kat Hu, Olivia, and Elle all have the same boyfriend. They plan revenge and find him dead, so now the three have to work together to clear their names. This is where we’d go for the unlikely friendships in Vera’s shop. Kat, a chemistry postdoc, also has the unfortunate habit of trying to fix an awkward moment with another pun.
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06
Spying in High Heels
by Gemma Halliday
A shoe designer’s boyfriend disappears along with twenty million dollars. Maddie enlists her mother, a psychic, and an aspiring actress. The detective gives her something else to think about, though she can still find time to check her mascara in a crisis.
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07
Nearly Departed in Deadwood
by Ann Charles
Violet Parker needs to sell a house in the next three weeks to keep her job. When a prospective client points a shotgun at her, she keeps up the sales talk through a digression about bikini mud wrestling. This one has a little paranormal suspense and a much more frightening case. Girls are going missing, and Violet has a daughter to worry about.
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08
Crimes Against a Book Club
by Kathy Cooperman
The wildcard is a caper about two friends trying to cover family bills. Annie can make face cream and Sarah can sell it to their La Jolla book club. The proposed price is $2,000 a jar. The formula calls for an illegal ingredient.
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09
One Death at a Time
by Abbi Waxman
Julia Mann’s new sobriety sponsor has taken on a second job. There’s a body in Julia’s pool, and Natasha Mason intends to help find the killer, however loudly Julia objects. If you liked Vera at her most overbearing, these two give each other plenty to work with. Julia can put her acting experience to use when they go undercover around Los Angeles.
Recovery and relapse are part of the story. At the first meeting, a man lights some pamphlets on fire. The facilitator insists he apologize to Natasha, who’s been putting them out.
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