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Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man)
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Chapter 24-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of physical abuse, emotional abuse, and death.
Chapter 24 Summary: “Millie”
It wasn’t Millie who was texting Vera—Mother and Father have found Millie’s burner phone. They barge into the room where they’re keeping Millie without food and water and demand to know what she told Vera about Thomas. Mother calls Millie a “bitch,” and Father shakes Millie so hard she feels her neck will break. Father says Millie has messed up. He and Mother will now have to clear the mess by dealing with Vera. Petrified for Vera, Millie grabs Mother’s feet in apology. Father then grabs Millie by her hair and throws her against the wall. As Mother and Father leave, Mother threatens that she will “fix” Millie unless she changes her behavior. Millie knows what fixing means: That is what happened to her elder sister Yara, who disappeared after trying to escape Mother and Father.
Millie hears someone call out to her from the adjoining room. It is Millie’s 11-year-old sister Mina, who has been trafficked from Cambodia. Mina’s real name is Channary. When Millie hears the despair in Channary’s voice, she gathers her courage and writes a letter to Vera that explains her background. Millie’s real name is Lin Penxi. When Penxi was 12 and auditioning for reality TV shows in China, she met a man called Uncle Yang who told her America was the place for her if she wanted to be a star. Uncle Yang convinced Penxi’s guileless, impoverished parents to send her to America with him. He even made her a “passport.” However, Penxi and the other children of her group were flown only a short distance before being packed in a cargo ship container. Uncle Yang was no talent scout, but part of an international trafficking ring that brought people to America as illegal immigrants and forced them into labor.
Penxi landed up in a large, abandoned warehouse that was converted into a shed with many rooms. The warehouse was run by a man and a woman whom Penxi was to call Mother and Father. If she did as Mother and Father asked, Penxi would have a good life in America. Mother and Father’s “home” contained many other children from all over the world, such as Yara, who was from Russia, and Jeffrey from Nigeria. The children were all assigned products to sell. For older boys like Jeffrey, and eventually Thomas, the product was credit card and identity theft scams over the phone. Penxi was put to work on email scams. Mother and Father kept their “children” in check by beating them and treating them with McDonald’s meals. When an older child or adult threatened to expose Mother and Father, they would in turn threaten them with deportation or the murder of their parents back home. Some, like rebellious Yara, disappeared.
When Millie turned 16, Mother revealed that the real product she was meant to sell was herself. Millie was to date men, grow close to them, and then ask for money for an emergency before abandoning them. She didn’t succeed in doing this with the first man she went out with, so Mother and Father locked her in her room for three days. With the second man, Millie worked harder for his sympathy and managed to get $7,000. To meet her monthly quota, Millie would sometimes date as many as five guys at a time. She admits to Vera that she even had sex with some of the men, but she would have done anything to avoid being locked in a room for days with a bucket for a toilet.
After Thomas disappeared, Millie debated telling the police about Mother and Father but was too scared her status as an illegal immigrant would be revealed. She would have gone back to the warehouse, but incredibly, she met Vera. Vera took Penxi to her beautiful tea shop and infused her life with warmth. However, now Penxi is about to die in the warehouse because she went against Mother and Father, just like Yara and Thomas.
Chapter 25 Summary: “Vera”
Vera is wrapping up after a busy day in her teashop when her shop window explodes. A shard of glass cuts her forehead. As Vera tries to mop the blood, an enormous man enters her shop. He tells Vera he flung a brick at her window as a warning. Vera needs to stop snooping and mind her own business. The man also threatens Vera against reporting him to the police, saying he knows where Julia and Emma live.
After the man leaves, Winifred runs into Vera’s shop, offering help. Vera asks her to call Tilly, after which she herself calls Julia, asking her and Emma to move somewhere else for a while. Tilly and Selena take Vera to the hospital, where she gets stitches. Later, at their home, Selena interrogates Vera. Tilly takes offense on Vera’s behalf, asking Selena not to badger his recently injured mother. Vera hates the fact that she caused a fight between her son and future daughter-in-law, but by the next morning, Tilly has apologized to Selena. Vera decides she needs Selena’s help.
Chapter 26 Summary: “Vera”
Vera tells Selena and Tilly about the man who threatened her. She kept him a secret because she fears for Julia and Emma. Selena asks Vera to invite Julia and Emma to Selena and Tilly’s so she can post a police detail outside. She thanks Vera for telling the truth, but she says Vera needs to back off now as the situation has escalated.
After Selena leaves to report the incident, Adi, Sana, and Riki visit, along with Julia and Emma. Vera recounts the story of the hulking, dangerous man, and the others compliment her bravery. Vera basks in the praise and then asks the others to help her with her investigation. As Tilly groans in frustration, Vera tells him she thinks Millie is in trouble. Oliver tells Vera he knows the bus Millie took to get home after one of their meetings. Google Maps shows the bus goes to Oakland. Millie also referred to her parents as Mother and Father, which seemed odd to Oliver. He is also not sure they are her real parents since she said her parents are farmers in China. Vera thinks they need more help to find Millie.
Chapter 27 Summary: “TJ”
Vera asks TJ, Robin, Aimes, and Qiang Wen to come over to Selena’s place. Once everyone has assembled, Vera tells them that they need to fulfill Xander’s wish: They need to make a video on how Xander wanted to come clean about his online persona being fake. TJ, Aimes, and Qiang Wen will have to post their truthful testimonies. When TJ and the others resist the idea, Vera tells them her theory. She thinks Millie and Xander were part of a controlling cult. When Xander threatened to reveal their truth online, the cult got him killed, making his murder seem like a suicide. She says the cult is now keeping Millie locked up and will probably murder her, too. TJ thinks going along with Vera’s suggestion will put Robin in danger, but he also feels a good parent is someone who shows their child how to do the right thing. He tells Vera that he will make the video.
Chapter 28 Summary: “Aimes”
Aimes is petrified that her online persona is about to go up in flames. However, she tells herself that her online life is a small part to pay for saving Millie’s real life. Julia and Sana hug Aimes to give her courage. On Vera’s direction, Robin begins to record the livestream. Vera looks into the camera and reveals that Xander’s life on social media was a lie. She asks Aimes, Qiang Wen, and TJ to explain their parts in the creation of the Xander persona. After their confessions, Vera speaks compassionately about Xander. She wants viewers to know that she thinks Xander was murdered because he was on the verge of exposing a cult that was trying to control him. She shows Millie’s photo and declares that she is in danger from the same cult. She asks her viewers for their help in locating Millie.
As the comments pour in, Robin and Adi point out that some are quite unsavory, with men calling Millie names and describing how she scammed them. One of the comments mentions how Millie got off the bus in East Oakland. Adi believes East Oakland is where Millie probably lives. Since the area is filled with warehouses abandoned after gentrification, Adi thinks Millie may be held in one of these. Vera calls Adi a genius for figuring out Millie’s location. Meanwhile, Selena sends a message via Oliver that Vera must stop what she is doing. Momentarily concerned about Selena’s warning, Aimes ultimately decides to go along with Vera as she believes Vera is doing the right thing.
Chapter 29 Summary: “Qiang Wen”
Qiang Wen recalls Xander telling him about his sister. All she could see from her room was an ugly red building, so Xander made her gold origami flowers that she pasted on her window. Qiang Wen tells the group about the building, and using satellite view, Adi locates an industrial park that matches this description. Tilly informs Selena about the lead so she can send a squad to the location. However, Vera decides all of them will also drive to East Oakland. Qiang Wen feels uncertain about this until he realizes that he does not want to be a passive observer any more.
As Tilly drives the group to the industrial park, he tells Vera that they must be bystanders. Selena’s explicit instructions are to let the police do their job. If Vera does not comply, she can say goodbye to the prospect of having Selena for a xifu. Vera calls Selena’s tactic emotional blackmail, and Tilly counters that Selena learned the strategy from Vera herself. Vera acknowledges that Selena is good at emotional blackmail. Tilly parks a little away from the warehouse. Soon, they can hear the faint sounds of shouting. Qiang Wen feels sad that Xander lived in such a place and is briefly consumed by hatred for the people who brought this about. The only hopeful thought he has is that he might have helped find Xander’s sister.
Chapter 30 Summary: “Millie”
Millie is weak since she hasn’t had any food or water for two days. As she plunges into despair, she hopes she can have courage in her last moments, as Thomas probably did. Channary knocks on the partition between their rooms, asking Millie if Mother and Father are going to kill her. Millie says yes, and Channary begins to sob. Just then, Millie hears loud booms through the building. As the sounds draw closer, Millie can hear police officers yelling at people to get down. She begins to scream for help.
Someone shouts at her to get back from the door. Millie gathers her strength and backs away, and the door is kicked in. Two officers rescue Millie and then Channary. As the officers escort Millie out, she can see Mother and Father in handcuffs. Mother spots Millie and tells her she is going to be sorry for what she did. Outside, Millie hears Vera’s voice asking to be let through to Millie. Millie smiles and faints. When she wakes up, she is in a hospital room with Vera by her side. Vera calls Millie Penxi. Vera now knows Penxi’s truth because Selena gave her the letter Penxi wrote to her. Vera tells Penxi that Channary has been placed with Julia and Emma as police try to track down her parents in Cambodia. Police have already found the contact number of Penxi’s own parents, and Vera urges Penxi to call them. As the line goes through, Penxi’s heart warms to hear the love in her parents’ voices.
Chapter 31 Summary: “Xander”
Xander is not his real name, but neither is Thomas. He chose Xander for his new life because it is a cool name, and he thinks it is the sort of name a scammer could never have. Xander’s online life was intended as an escape from the horror of his reality, but it has ended up becoming a huge lie. Things have gotten too messy, with Xander cracking under the pressure of his double existence. When Aimes offered to date him, he had to turn her down because she would have discovered he was a fraud. He offered her a fake relationship instead. Xander did the same thing with Qiang Wen. With the fake family and talent manager in place, Xander could pretend he was living a version of the American Dream. Things seemed to be going fine until Mother and Father saw the opportunity in Xander’s social clout. They began to pressure him to use it to scam people. They even threatened Xander that they would use their contact in the police against him if he did not comply with them. That is when Xander decided to come clean.
As Xander folds one last daisy for Millie, his sister, he hopes she will understand why he went to the police to expose all of them. He hopes the police are lenient with Millie and the other children, realizing that they were forced into criminal operations. Though Xander is terrified of confessing to the police, he knows he is doing the right thing.
Epilogue Summary
Vera’s teashop is bursting at the seams with her ever-growing family and Penxi’s parents. The most severe charges have been brought against the human traffickers, who will be put away for a long time. Oliver informs Vera that her case has made the front page on the New York Times website. When Oliver mentions the headline—“Married Couple Arrested in Bay Area for Murder and Human Trafficking” (320)—Vera is outraged. She assumed she would be a part of the headline. Everyone assures her the article mentions her as a “TikTok personality” and great investigator. Vera is mollified and turns her attention to Aimes, whom she wants to help find a new career. As Aimes tells Vera she needs some time, Winifred informs everyone she is going on a trip to Paris and would like Vera to come along. Selena and Tilly offer to pay for Vera’s trip. Vera warms up to the idea, imagining herself solving murders in beautiful France.
Chapter 24-Epilogue Analysis
In the climactic last section of the novel, the atmosphere of danger deepens. Despite the novel being a cozy mystery, it does not shy away from reality and social commentary. While the previous section begins with the threat of vandalism, with blood-like red paint splattered on Vera’s shop-front, these chapters up the ante with Vera getting injured and shedding real blood. The increased intensity of violence underscores that despite the ties of community and family, the world remains a dangerous place. The same escalation is mirrored in Millie’s situation as she is held in a locked room without food and water. These grim details reflect how vulnerable people often go unseen and unprotected.
However, the negative forces of this section are counterbalanced by the tightening of the bonds of family and friendship that reinforce the theme of The Importance of Community and Found Family. All of Vera’s old and new family members unite to save Millie, and this is emblematic of the gathering of the forces for good. It is also a culmination of the character arcs set in motion at the novel’s beginning. Apart from banding together for a good cause, the characters also resolve their inner conflicts, making decisions that are brave rather than convenient: Qiang Wen resolves to move into the center of the action, shunning the deceptive comfort of passivity; Aimes decides to publicly acknowledge that her online persona is a falsity; and TJ understands that being a good father is also about teaching his child that playing it safe is not always the best option. These watershed moments in their respective journeys ensure that they grow as characters, with their positive changes lending dynamism to the plot.
By highlighting the issue of human trafficking, this section illustrates how Sutanto uses the genre of cozy mystery to offer social commentary. In a cozy mystery, most characters are redeemable, and this is a feature that the novel uses to show how people like Millie and Xander are forced into crime by circumstances. Although Millie pretended to date men so she could dupe them of money, the narrative does not flatten her into a villain. It reveals she did so under threat of deportation, arrest, and harm, and the moral complexity of her situation challenges simplistic notions of good and evil. Sutanto explains in the Acknowledgments section that the human trafficking plot was unfortunately inspired by real events. After her mother was deceived by a scam caller, the investigating officer told the family that such callers “were often victims of human trafficking themselves, duped out of their home countries and forced to work as scammers by these traffickers” (326). This detail brings a note of realism to the fictional plot and invites readers to reflect on how exploitation can lead the exploited to turn to crime.
Another important issue raised in these chapters is that of the collateral damage caused by capitalism. When Qiang Wen sees the abandoned warehouse in which Millie and Xander were forced to live, he feels “[a]ngry at humanity as a whole” (307). The novel critiques a system in which people take over common lands to build industrial complexes that pollute, and then abandon them on a whim. These “ghost” complexes then become easy hiding spots for traffickers and other criminals. Thus, the image of the derelict warehouse, which is now a place of confinement and suffering, is a symbol of systemic neglect and misplaced priorities.
While Xander’s disappearance is the impetus for the novel, the inclusion of his narrative at the end renders him as a complex, flesh-and-blood person. So far, Xander has been a cipher, seen through the eyes of the other characters. They have speculated about his motives, his decisions, and even his sexuality. For instance, Qiang Wen wonders if Xander ever thought of him as an elder, and Vera wonders if Xander did not date women because he was not out as being gay. The fact that Millie did not even know there was a Xander to her Thomas further heightened the suspense around his character. The late reveal of Xander’s interiority serves two purposes: It makes his character more empathetic, and it infuses poignancy into Xander’s portrayal. The poignancy arises from the fact that Xander’s life was cut short when he was on the verge of integrating his public persona and private self. Though Xander is denied this, the other characters are able to achieve his integration. By the novel’s end, Aimes, Qiang Wen, Millie, and TJ move toward a more honest version of themselves.
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