Vera Kelly: Lost and Found (Paperback)

Description

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A Star Tribune Best Book of Summer, an iBooks and ALTA Journal Best Book of the Month, and a Book Riot Best Crime Book of the Month

A Publishers Weekly and Book Riot Best Book of the Week

One of Crime Reads' Most Anticipated Books of the Year

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.  

About the Author

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Rosalie Knecht is the author of Who is Vera Kelly?, Vera Kelly is not a Mystery, winner of the Edgar Award, G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, as well as a Relief Map, and a translation of Aira's The Seamstress and the Wind. She lives in Jersey City, NJ.

Praise For…

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Romantic and thrilling.
— The Star Tribune

Excellent. . . . This nuanced portrait of gay life in the aftermath of the Stonewall Riots thoroughly satisfies.
— Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

Knecht continues to paint a gritty yet romantic picture in her third Vera novel. . . . The internal tension is palpable, and the humorous moments offer tremendous relief.
— Booklist, Starred Review

If you’re not reading [Vera Kelly’s] rolicking adventures from spy-hood to PI-dom, you absolutely should.
— Crime Reads

Vera Kelly returns in a luxurious SoCal caper. . . . with a chase that’s close to her heart.
— Lamda Literary

A page-turner.
— The Advocate

Brilliant. . . . A delicious mix of taut mystery, family drama, and queer romance.
— iBooks

Fascinating.
— BookPage

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

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

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

Recasts cozy mysteries through a queer lens. . . . with women occupying center stage, saving each other and functioning as heroes.
— Foreword Reviews