Vera Kelly Is Not a Mystery (A Vera Kelly Story)
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3.9 • 23 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the 2021 Edgar Award – G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award
Finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards
The “splendid genre-pushing” (People) Vera Kelly series returns in full force as our recently out-of-the-spy-game heroine finds herself traveling from Brooklyn to a sprawling countryside estate in the Caribbean in her first case as a private investigator.
When ex-CIA agent Vera Kelly loses her job and her girlfriend in a single day, she reluctantly goes into business as a private detective. Heartbroken and cash-strapped, she takes a case that dredges up dark memories and attracts dangerous characters from across the Cold War landscape. Before it’s over, she’ll chase a lost child through foster care and follow a trail of Dominican exiles to the Caribbean. Forever looking over her shoulder, she nearly misses what’s right in front of her: her own desire for home, connection, and a new romance at the local bar.
In this exciting second installment of the Vera Kelly series, Rosalie Knecht challenges and deepens the Vera we love: a woman of sparkling wit, deep moral fiber, and martini-dry humor who knows how to follow a case even as she struggles to follow her heart.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Vera Kelly is a pretty great detective character. She’s like Philip Marlowe, if instead of a tough guy in 1940s Los Angeles, he were a hip lesbian in 1967 Brooklyn. Rosalie Knecht’s comic spy thriller Who Is Vera Kelly? introduced this winning heroine to the world, and the sequel—which can happily be read as a stand-alone—is just as appealing. It opens with Vera being dumped by her girlfriend on the very same day that she’s fired from her TV news gig for her sexual orientation. Broke and melancholy, Vera tries her hand at private-investigator work, picking up the case of a missing boy that sends her to the Dominican Republic and a dangerous world of political conflict. Being a gay woman in pre-Stonewall America makes Vera a natural at undercover work, and Knecht’s evocative writing does a great job making us feel what it was like for a smart, strong woman in an era that considered those traits unfeminine. We were pulling for Vera throughout this thrilling adventure, as she gets to the bottom of her case while unraveling a few mysteries of the heart, too.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Knecht's excellent sequel to Who Is Vera Kelley? picks up with ex-CIA agent Vera in 1967 New York City, as she tries to solve a mystery in an era when only men are expected to do the job. Vera's poetry professor girlfriend, Jane, announces she's had enough of not feeling wanted, and leaves. Then Vera loses her editing job at a TV station after her boss finds out she'd been dating a woman. She decides to fall back on her old skills and becomes a private detective. When the Ibarra family asks Vera to find their nephew's child, F lix, who was sent to New York from the Dominican Republic amid political unrest, Vera takes on the case. Meanwhile, Vera balances the emotional consequences of her breakup with a new love interest: the bartender at her favorite, oft-raided, bar. When Vera realizes the Ibarras aren't who they say they are, her mission becomes a different one: find F lix and his real parents, reunite them, and throw the fake Ibarras off the scent. This leads her to the Dominican Republic, where the police mistake her for a spy. Knecht brilliantly captures Vera's emotions, and shines with keen observations of the varied settings. This winning literary page-turner gives a strong sense of a smart, queer, and complex person navigating an unfriendly world.
