Date Read: 1/18/2025

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing Group for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

I wanted to read this book for multiple reasons: I love the author’s other books and enjoy Sutanto’s writing style, I previously read the first Vera Wong book and highly enjoyed it, and I wanted to see what crazy antics Vera got into this time. This book did not disappoint.

Vera is such a fun and enjoyable character- she’s everyone’s auntie or grandma. While this book touches on some serious topics in terms of types of crime, it does so in an informative and factual way. It is clear the author did deep research in order to make the mystery of this story something that could be very realistic. I enjoyed how the characters from the first book were brought back so that we could see where they are now and the new characters that are at the forefront of this book all felt like good additions. Finally, this book does a good job of using alternating narrators in order to give the reader more in depth knowledge of what is going on.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who read the first Vera Wong story, anyone who enjoyed Sutanto’s Aunties series and anyone that likes reading cozy or humorous mysteries, especially those with added cultural contexts.