Vera Kelly Is Not a Mystery

264 pages

English language

Published Oct. 29, 2020 by Tin House Books, LLC.

ISBN:: 978-1-947793-89-7

(1 review)

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 …

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.

5 editions

divya@sfba.club reviewed Vera Kelly Is Not a Mystery by Rosalie Knecht

Great mystery set during the 60s

5 stars

Set in the 60s, Vera Kelley is a lesbian spy in the CIA who leaves CIA when they leave her hanging during a hairy time in Argentina. She loses her next job when the manager finds out she is lesbian. She turns to being a private investigator putting her spying skills to good use. This book touches upon the US intervention in Dominican Republic and how much it did to prop up a dictator while also being a mystery that touches on the foster care system and how screwed up it is. Really loved the atmosphere setting which felt very lived in and how difficult it must have been for LGBTQ+ folks to be surviving in the middle of it all and yet they did.