Publisher's Weekly Review
Knecht's excellent sequel to Who Is Vera Kelley? picks up with ex-CIA agent Vera in 1967 New York City, as she tries to solve a mystery in an era when only men are expected to do the job. Vera's poetry professor girlfriend, Jane, announces she's had enough of not feeling wanted, and leaves. Then Vera loses her editing job at a TV station after her boss finds out she'd been dating a woman. She decides to fall back on her old skills and becomes a private detective. When the Ibarra family asks Vera to find their nephew's child, Félix, who was sent to New York from the Dominican Republic amid political unrest, Vera takes on the case. Meanwhile, Vera balances the emotional consequences of her breakup with a new love interest: the bartender at her favorite, oft-raided, bar. When Vera realizes the Ibarras aren't who they say they are, her mission becomes a different one: find Félix and his real parents, reunite them, and throw the fake Ibarras off the scent. This leads her to the Dominican Republic, where the police mistake her for a spy. Knecht brilliantly captures Vera's emotions, and shines with keen observations of the varied settings. This winning literary page-turner gives a strong sense of a smart, queer, and complex person navigating an unfriendly world. (June)
Kirkus Review
After leaving the CIA, a former spy becomes a private detective in New York City. The welcome sequel to Who Is Vera Kelly? (2018) opens in August 1967, a year after Vera's last mission for the CIA. Both her personal and professional lives are upended when she's dumped by her girlfriend and loses her job for being a lesbian on the same day. At a loss, Vera decides to use her CIA training to open an office as a private investigator, and when a Dominican couple asks her to find the missing son of a politically endangered family for her first major case, all of Vera's skills, intuition, and self-reliance will be tested. Vera discovers the boy has run away from foster care after his caretaker died, and her subsequent trip to the Dominican Republic to find the boy's parents echoes her escape from Argentina in the last book when her investigation reveals her employers are not who they seem and she's taken hostage. In between her undercover obligations, Vera attempts a new relationship with a bartender named Maxine but finds she cannot develop substantial connections with others while keeping all of her secrets. Author Knecht uses this second book to delve more into Vera's personal life and history while also deftly balancing the host of characters related to the mystery. Knecht's prose is expansive in Vera's moments of introspection and lively in moments of action, and she moves easily between Vera's first-person narration and third-person scenes regarding the missing boy. Readers will be thrilled by Vera Kelly's return. A worthy and welcome continuation of a subversive series. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Now out of the CIA, Vera Kelly (Who Is Vera Kelly?, 2018) is left by her girlfriend and fired from her news job for being a person who "lives that way" on the same day. She may know who she is, but fitting that persona into the New York of 1967 is another thing altogether. Vera sets up her own PI shop, and, after some demoralizing work revealing cheating spouses, a real challenge appears. The son of a prominent Dominican family has gone missing, and the boy's uncle, Mr. Ibarra, implores Vera's help. Vera again dives undercover, this time as a caseworker at a boys' home, a film scout in the DR, and a beard to a gay political reporter she meets poolside. As the stakes skyrocket, she wonders if she'll ever get back to her new girlfriend, and she's awfully glad she packed that gun after all. Knecht'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.
