Vera Kelly: Lost and Found

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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.

“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.” — Kirkus Reviews

“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)

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.