Dim Sum of All Fears (Noodle Shop Mystery #2)
Author: Vivien Chien
Publisher: St. Martin's Press (2018)
291 pages
Genre: Cozy Mystery
The merchants of Asia Village are gearing up for Chinese New Year. It has only been a few months since Mr. Feng was murdered, but business has picked up. There is a new shop, City Charm Souvenirs, in the space where the murder took place.
Lana Lee's family owns Ho-Lee Noodle House, the shop next to City Charm Souvenirs. Lana and Isabelle, one of the proprietors of the new shop, have become friends. They met at the book store in the mystery section.
Lana's mom usually runs the restaurant, but her parents are needed in Taiwan to care for Lana's grandmother. Mrs. Lee leaves Lana in charge. This upsets her older sister, who feels it is her place to be left in charge. She is the oldest after all. However, Mrs. Lee feels it would be too much of a burden on Anna May while she is attending law school.
Lana and Isabelle try to get together once a week for a visit to the book shop followed by dinner at the Bamboo Lounge. Lana stops by to see Isabelle and make sure they are still on for the next night. While she is there, Isabelle mentions that her husband, Brandon, needs her to stay late tonight to close up the shop, but has promised that tomorrow he will close up so that she can go out. Lana is not sure she likes Brandon. He seems to always have errands he has to run and leaves Isabelle at the shop. While they are at dinner, Isabelle confides in Lana that she is concerned about Brandon. He has been acting strange and disappearing a lot lately. She fears he may be having an affair. Lana assures Isabelle that she doesn't think Brandon is having an affair, but suggests that Isabelle just ask him. As they are leaving the plaza, Brandon catches up with them and asks Isabelle if she can close up the shop because he has an errand to run. Of course she agrees and says good-night to Lana.
After dropping her parents at the airport the next morning, Lana opens Ho-Lee Noodle Shop for the day. As Lana is preparing tea service for the first customers, she hears someone banging on the service door. She and Peter, the cook, open the door and find Kimmy Tran in hysterics. She is screaming that they should call the police. When she finally calms down enough to speak, she tells them that she was taking the trash out and noticed the back door of City Charm was open. She stuck her head inside to call to Isabelle and saw two bodies on the floor and blood everywhere. Isabelle and Brandon are dead. What happened? Was Brandon involved in some shady dealings?
I really enjoy the characters in this series. Lana is still trying to figure out what to do with her life. She doesn't think she wants to work at the restaurant for the rest of her life. She has an interview set up for a job as an office manager that she is really excited about. But when her parents decide to go to Taiwan and leave her in charge of the restaurant, she has to cancel the interview. She doesn't tell her parents about the interview, but just realizes that running the restaurant is more important. In Death by Dumpling, the first book in the series, Lana becomes interested in Detective Trudeau. Their relationship continues in this book, but is a very minor component. Detective Trudeau insists that Lana not get involved in the investigation. She really tries not to, but people come to her and tell her things and she just can't help getting involved. Her roommate Meagan doesn't help. She begins to speculate about what Brandon might have been involved in and when people begin telling Lana things, she encourages her to check them out and even offers to go with her.
There are some interesting new characters who are family members of the murdered couple. They provide suspects and lots of red herrings. The mystery was pretty straight forward, with a few surprises along the way. In the end it is all unraveled and comes to a satisfying conclusion.
I enjoyed this second installment in The Noodle Shop Mysteries and look forward to the third.
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