Vera Kelly

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 coming-of-age story, Who Is Vera Kelly? introduces an original, wry, and whip-smart female spy for the twenty-first century.

The 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 in 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.

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 commit to save the woman she loves. "Romantic and thrilling." "A luxurious SoCal caper." "Brilliant…A delicious mix of taut mystery, family drama, and queer romance." "Gritty yet romantic…The internal tension is palpable, and the humorous moments offer tremendous relief." "Recasts cozy mysteries through a queer lens…with women occupying center stage, saving each other and functioning as heroes." "Mapping a perilous course through the underbelly of California cults…[and] the mental health 'cures' of the 1970s…Filled with well-drawn, quirky characters, the novel captures both the hidden pleasures and not so hidden dangers of a closeted existence." "Once more Rosalie Knecht proves herself one of the finest writers in the genre…This novel is a pleasure as wise as it is thrilling." "Elisabeth Rodgers is a talented narrator who is highly suited to portraying the strong and resourceful private detective and…gives all the characters in the story vivid, distinctive personalities." "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."