Description

Spring 1971. Vera Kelly and her girlfriend, Max, leave their cosy 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 twenty-one, prepares for the trip with equal parts dread and anger.

Upon arriving, Vera is shocked by the size and extravagance of the family estate which reveals a privileged upbringing that, up until this point, Max had only hinted at. Tensions boil over at dinner as 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. The next morning, when Vera wakes up, Max is gone…

In Vera Kelly Lost and Found, Rosalie Knecht gives Vera her highest-stakes 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.

Publisher Review

I've anticipated few novels this year with as much excitement as Vera Kelly Lost and Found... Any trepidation I had about it not measuring up vanished with the opening sentences * New York Times * 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 Vera Kelly is back! If you're not reading her rolicking adventures from spy-hood to PI-dom, you absolutely should * CrimeReads (Most Anticipated Books, Summer 2022) * This is a great historical series -- Jamie Canaves * Bookriot * The action that makes up the middle of the novel is fun and zippy, imbued with layers of character work and Knecht's sparkling prose. But it's in the quieter, more internal moments that Very Kelly Lost and Found does its most thrilling work. Gay history and bar culture, queer romance, P.I. intrigue, the occult, and 1970s Hollywood are all in the mix in the latest Vera Kelly installment, Knecht proving for the third time over her knack for bending and blending genres * Autostraddle *