HOT AND SOUR SUSPECTS - Vivien Chien
A Noodle Shop Mystery
St. Martin's Paperbacks
ISBN: 9781250782618
January 2022

Mystery

Cleveland, Ohio - Present Day

As the manager of her family's restaurant, Ho-Lee Noodle House, Lana Lee decides that it's time to find a way to pick up more business. Thanks to a suggestion by her room-mate, Megan Riley, she is planning a speed-dating contest. The evening is a surprising success until Lana gets a call from Rina, their friend, and anowner of a shop in their complex, that the man she was matched up with at the speed-dating event is dead, and she's the prime suspect. Stunned, Lana turns to her boyfriend, Adam, a detective with the local police department, but he is mum about the circumstances. Rina claims to have been in the shower, and when she came out, Gavin, the man she had just met, was dead on the floor.

Lana and Megan want to clear their friend's name, but that may prove more difficult than they'd imagined. Rina has been acting strangely towards them since the murder, and when one of Gavin's former girlfriends, who was also at the speed-dating night, and had confronted him, is seen with Rina, Lana and Megan have to find out why. They enlist the help of Ho-Lee Noodle House cook Peter's girlfriend, Kimmy, who is rather unconventional, but hopefully useful in their quest. Despite a warning from Adam not to get involved, the ladies start planning.

Gavin had been a member of a local rock band, and worked for a financial company during the day. Ex-girlfriend, Brandi, is less than helpful when the ladies interview her. She is, in fact, rather hostile towards them. Rina distances herself even further from her friends. Lana questions a resident of Gavin's apartment building who claims that she rarely sleeps thanks to his constant parties. Did she hear anything that night? Lana even goes for a job interview at Gavin's company, hoping to find some clues from the people there. She does learn a few things, but are they helpful? Who hated Gavin enough to kill him? Obviously he was disliked by many, but why murder him?

HOT AND SOUR SUSPECTS is told in the first person by Lana. She, her family, and friends are a close-knit community in the Asia Village area which the noodle house shares with various other small businesses, including Rina's shop. Lana is a fun-loving, family oriented, but free spirit who, once she gets into a mystery, isn't inclined to leave any clue unfollowed.
A totally entertaining story, HOT AND SOUR SUSPECTS is a quick and fun read.

Jani Brooks