Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

PRAISE FORFOUR AUNTIES AND A WEDDING“Meddy Chan and her indomitable aunties are back in the hilarious Four Aunties and a Wedding by Jesse Q. Sutanto.”—PopSugar“Sutanto deftly blends preposterous humor (British slang, mafia posers) with enduring devotion to prove ‘there is no right or wrong way to ‘being Asian.’ ”—Booklist“Charming, chaotic, and sometimes ridiculous, this tale will appeal to anyone who both adores and is embarrassed by their family, which is just about everyone.”—Publishers Weekly“You can’t help but get a kick out of the aunties’ outrageous stunts and their even bigger hearts. Keep your friends close and these four aunties closer.”—Kirkus Reviews“Sutanto pushes you to the edge of your seat with this suspenseful rom-com that infuses humor and heritage.”—USA Today“There’s a kind of magic to Sutanto’s writing. . . . She tackles complicated issues of culture and family ties while also creating convoluted plotlines that’ll make you squeal with laughter.”—The Wellesley News“Heart, humor, and the mafia . . . this saga has it all!”—Woman’s WorldDIAL A FOR AUNTIES“A hilarious, heartfelt romp of a novel about—what else?—accidental murder and the bond of family. . . . Utterly clever, deeply funny, and altogether charming, this book is sure to be one of the best of the year!”—Emily Henry, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Book Lovers“Sutanto brilliantly infuses comedy and culture into the unpredictable rom-com/murder-mystery mashup as Meddy navigates familial duty, possible arrest, and a groomzilla. I laughed out loud and you will too.”—USA Today (four-star review)“I loved it. Whip-smart, original, and so funny. I found it impossible to put down and lost count of the number of times I laughed out loud.”—Beth O’Leary, Sunday Times bestselling author of The No-Show“It’s a high-wire act of comic timing, misunderstandings, romantic foibles, and possibly foiled heists. . . . The glue is Meddeline; endearing, capable, and in full thrall to her elders, who are all absolute hoots to keep company with.”—The New York Times Book Review“If you loved Crazy Rich Asians and all the comedic family drama, you’ll definitely get a kick out of this story.”—PopSugar“Part thriller, part rom-com, Jesse Q. Sutanto’s Dial A for Aunties will give you the good laugh we could all use these days.”—Marie Claire TITLES BY JESSE Q. SUTANTODIAL A FOR AUNTIESFOUR AUNTIES AND A WEDDINGVERA WONG’S UNSOLICITED ADVICE FOR MURDERERSYOUNG ADULT AND MIDDLE GRADEWELL, THAT WAS UNEXPECTEDTHE OBSESSIONTHE NEW GIRLTHEO TAN AND THE FOX SPIRIT BERKLEYAn imprint of Penguin Random House LLCpenguinrandomhouse.comCopyright © 2023 by PT Karya Hippo MakmurPenguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataNames: Sutanto, Jesse Q., author.Title: Vera Wong’s unsolicited advice for murderers / Jesse Q. Sutanto.Description: New York: Berkley, [2023]Identifiers: LCCN 2022046634 (print) | LCCN 2022046635 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593549223 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780593546178 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593546185 (ebook)Classification: LCC PR9500.9.S88 V47 2023 (print) | LCC PR9500.9.S88 (ebook) | DDC 823/.92—dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022046634LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022046635Berkley hardcover edition / March 2023Berkley trade paperback edition / March 2023Cover design and art by Vikki ChuBook design by Daniel Brount, adapted for ebook by Kelly BrennanThis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.pid_prh_6.0_142841689_c0_r0 Contents CoverPraise for Jesse Q. SutantoTitles by Jesse Q. SutantoTitle PageCopyrightDedicationOneTwoThreeFourVera Wong’s Murder CaseFiveSixSevenEightNineTenElevenTwelveThirteenFourteenVera’s NotebookFifteenSixteenSeventeenEighteenNineteenTwentyTwenty-OneTwenty-TwoTwenty-ThreeTwenty-FourTwenty-FiveTwenty-SixVera’s NotebookTwenty-SevenTwenty-EightTwenty-NineThirtyThirty-OneThirty-TwoThirty-ThreeThirty-FourThirty-FiveThirty-SixThirty-SevenThirty-EightThirty-NineFortyEpilogueAcknowledgmentsAbout the Author To Mama, the OG Vera ONE VERAVera Wong Zhuzhu, age sixty, is a pig, but she really should have been born a rooster. We are, of course, referring to Chinese horoscopes. Vera Wong is a human woman, thank you very much, but roosters have nothing on her. Every morning, at exactly four thirty, Vera’s eyelids snap open like roller shades shooting up. Then the upper half of her body levitates from the mattress—no lazy rolling out of bed for Vera, though admittedly sitting up in bed now comes with about half a dozen clicks and clacks of her joints. She swings her fuzzy-socked feet out with gusto and immediately finds the slippers she placed next to her bed with military precision the night before. She takes a quick moment to send a text to her son, reminding him that he’s sleeping his life away and should have been up and at it before her. He is, after all, a young man with a whole world to conquer. Late mornings, Vera believes, are only for toddlers and Europeans.After a quick wash, Vera dons her morning gear—a polo shirt with a Ralph Lauren logo so big that it covers her entire left breast (well, okay, thanks to the ravages of time and gravity, it covers the top half of her breast) and sweatpants. Arm sleeves are yanked on and adjusted so that there isn’t an exposed sliver of skin between her shirt sleeves and the removable ones. Many years ago, when Vera was a brazen young woman, she never checked her arm sleeves and often walked around with a tanned strip of skin around her upper arms. Those were obviously the wild days, when she lived life on the edge and took unnecessary risks.Sleeves on, Vera nods at her reflection and marches to the kitchen, where she gulps down a pint of room-temperature water—cold water, Vera believes, would freeze the fats in your arteries and give you heart disease. At the door, Vera dons her orthopedic sneakers and her tortoiseshell sunglasses, and finally, the last and perhaps most vital article of clothing—a visor so enormous that there is no way that a single ray