New York City, 1962. Vera Kelly is struggling to make rent and blend into the underground gay scene in Greenwich Village. Doing night shifts at a radio station, her quick wits, sharp tongue, and technical skills are noticed by a CIA recruiter. Next thing she knows she's in Buenos Aires, wiretapping a congressman and infiltrating a student activist group. When a betrayal leaves her stranded in the wake of a coup, Vera learns the Cold War makes strange bedfellows, and must take extreme measures to save herself.

Who Is Vera Kelly?

Literature & Fiction

Knecht, Rosalie

Literary

Thorndike Press Large Print

Review\nVera Kelly Is Not a Mystery is the perfect sequel, because it's even better than the first book. . . . Reader, you will love this one. Don't walk. Run.\nVera Kelly is Not a Mystery is an intricate mystery featuring love, corruption, and a charming and capable heroine.\nSexy, sad and stylish.\nA splendid genre-pushing thriller . . . A fractured coming-out in the repressive '50s primed Vera for a life of deception?but in Knecht's expert hands she's smart and complicated, yearning for connection in a tumultuous world."--People, on Who Is Vera Kelly?\nForget about 007. This heroine has her own brand of spycraft...--The Washington Post, on Who Is Vera Kelly?\nGripping, magnificently written . . . This is a cool, strolling boulevardier of a book, worldly, wry, unrushed but never slow, which casts its gaze upon the middle of the last century and forces us to consider how it might be failing us still.--The New York Times Book Review, on Who Is Vera Kelly?\nKnecht's novel is a slow-burn espionage thriller, a complex treatment of queer identity, and an immersive period piece all rolled into one delectable page-turner . . . Vera Kelly introduces a fascinating new spy to literature's mystery canon.--Entertainment Weekly, on Who Is Vera Kelly?\nThanks to Rosalie Knecht's clever, hilarious writing, you'll find yourself wanting everyone you know to read it so that you can discuss together the wholly original, brilliantly subversive character that is Vera Kelly.--NYLON, on Who Is Vera Kelly?\nWith Vera Kelly, Rosalie Knecht has resurrected the detective novel for the 21st century. Sharp, self-possessed, and with a nuanced, meaningful knowledge of realities and histories well beyond her own, Kelly's take on who's lying and why makes for riveting reading in every scene. I tore through this book. More Vera Kelly, please.--Idra Novey, author of Those Who Knew\nSnappy, gritty, and engaging.\nKnecht's writing is evocative and spare, stylish and brooding, making this mystery series compulsively readable and offering a refreshing spin on atmospheric noir with a compelling queer historical frame.\nReaders will be thrilled by Vera Kelly's return. A worthy and welcome continuation of a subversive series.\n"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 forhome, 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 tofollow a case even as she struggles to follow her heart"--

Vera Kelly In Not a Mystery (A Vera Kelly Story, 2)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

A small town swept up in a manhunt for a fugitive from foreign soil and a teenage girl struggling to make the right choices with little information and less time. In the heat of a stifling summer in her sixteenth year, Livy Marko spends her days in the rust-belt town of Lomath, Pennsylvania, babysitting, hanging out with her best friend, Nelson, and waiting for a bigger life to begin. These simple routines are disrupted when the electricity is cut off and the bridges are closed by a horde of police and FBI agents. A fugitive from the Republic of Georgia, on the run from an extradition order, has taken refuge in nearby hills and no one is able to leave or enter Lomath until he is found.As the police fail to find the wanted man and hours stretch into days, the town of Lomath begins to buckle under the strain. Like Russian dolls, each hostage seems to be harboring a captive of their own. Even Livy’s parents may have something to conceal, and Livy must learn that the source of danger is not always what it appears.Rosalie Knecht’s wise and suspenseful debut evokes the classics while conjuring the contemporary paranoia of the post-terrorist age. Relief Map doesn’t loosen its grip until the consequences of this catastrophic summer, and the ways in which a quiet girl’s fate can be rerouted and forever changed, are made fully apparent.

Relief Map

Tin House Books

An NPR Best Book of the Year "Gripping, subtle, magnificently written." ―The New York Times Book Review "A delectable page-turner . . . Vera Kelly introduces a fascinating new spy to literature’s mystery canon―one we hope sticks around long beyond this snappy, intimate debut." ―Entertainment Weekly
New York City, 1962. Vera Kelly is struggling to make rent and blend into the underground gay scene in Greenwich Village. She's working night shifts at a radio station when her quick wits, sharp tongue, and technical skills get her noticed by a recruiter for the CIA. Next thing she knows she's in Argentina, tasked with wiretapping a congressman and infiltrating a group of student activists in Buenos Aires. As Vera becomes more and more enmeshed with the young radicals, the fragile local government begins to split at the seams. When a betrayal leaves her stranded in the wake of a coup, Vera learns the Cold War makes for strange and unexpected bedfellows, and she's forced to take extreme measures to save herself. An exhilarating page-turner and perceptive coming-of-age story, Who Is Vera Kelly? introduces an original, wry, and whip-smart female spy for the twenty-first century.

Who Is Vera Kelly? (A Vera Kelly Story, 1)

United States

Vera Kelly Is Not a Mystery (A Vera Kelly Story, 2)

Review\n"I've anticipated few novels this year with as much excitement as Vera Kelly Lost and Found, the final volume in Rosalie Knecht’s nearly note-perfect 1960s-era private detective trilogy. . . . Knecht’s writing, crisp and taut, cuts through the landscape with lacerating swiftness." 
― Sarah Weinman, The New York Times Book Review\n"Romantic and thrilling." 
― The Star Tribune\n"Excellent. . . . This nuanced portrait of gay life in the aftermath of the Stonewall Riots thoroughly satisfies." 
― Publishers Weekly, Starred Review\n"Gritty yet romantic." 
― Booklist, Starred Review\n"If you’re not reading [Vera Kelly’s] rolicking adventures from spy-hood to PI-dom, you absolutely should." 
― Crime Reads\n"Engaging and often funny. . . . The heart of the novel―Vera’s introspections on disappointed family and society’s reactions to a same-sex couple―will resonate with many readers." 
― Historical Novels Society\n"A luxurious SoCal caper." 
― Lamda Literary\n"A page-turner." 
― The Advocate\n"Feels both like a classic noir and a wholly original take on the spy novel." 
― Parnassus Musing\n"Fascinating." 
― BookPage\n"Once more Rosalie Knecht proves herself one of the finest writers in the genre: brisk, witty, and emotionally intelligent. The much-anticipated return of Vera Kelly turns a tight plot around the failures of family and high stakes love, betrayal and the unlikely adventure toward self acceptance. This novel is a pleasure as wise as it is thrilling." 
― Tracy O'Neill, author of Quotients\n"What’s better than a sapphic crime story? Whether it be Killing Eve or Orange is the New Black, lesbians dominate the crime genre with humor and ease. Vera Kelly: Lost and Found takes it one step further: we have a lesbian detective on our hands. Nice!" 
― AfterEllen\n"Knecht’s lively prose moves easily between Vera’s experiences with Max’s cold and homophobic family to her memories of being a teenager with a distant and unforgiving mother, effectively creating an atmosphere of danger and uncertainty as Vera and Max work to survive and reunite." 
― Kirkus Reviews\n"Recasts cozy mysteries through a queer lens. . . . with women occupying center stage, saving each other and functioning as heroes." 
― Foreword Reviews\nA New York Times’ Editor’s Choice 
A Star Tribune Best Book of Summer 
A Book Riot and ALTA Journal Best Book of the Month 
Everyone’s favorite sleuth―Vera Kelly―is back and put to the test as she searches for her missing girlfriend. 
It’s spring 1971 and Vera Kelly and her girlfriend, Max, leave their cozy Brooklyn apartment for an emergency visit to Max's estranged family in Los Angeles. Max’s parents are divorcing―her father is already engaged to a much younger woman and under the sway of an occultist charlatan; her mother has left their estate in a hurry with no indication of return. Max, who hasn’t seen her family since they threw her out at the age of twenty-one, prepares for the trip with equal parts dread and anger. 
Upon arriving, Vera is shocked by the size and extravagance of the Comstock estate―the sprawling, manicured landscape; expansive and ornate buildings; and garages full of luxury cars reveal a privileged upbringing that, up until this point, Max had only hinted at―while Max attempts to navigate her father, who is hostile and controlling, and the occultist, St. James, who is charming but appears to be siphoning family money. Tensions boil over at dinner when Max threatens to alert her mother―and her mother’s lawyers―to St. James and her father’s plans using marital assets. The next morning, when Vera wakes up, Max is gone. 
In Vera Kelly Lost and Found, Rosalie Knecht gives Vera her highest-stake case yet, as Vera quickly puts her private detective skills to good use and tracks a trail of breadcrumbs across southern California to find her missing girlfriend. She travels first to a film set in Santa Ynez and, ultimately, to a most unlikely destination where Vera has to decide how much she is willing to

Vera Kelly: Lost and Found (Vera Kelly, 3)

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Vera Kelly Lost and Found (A Vera Kelly Story, 3)

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