Who Is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht
- Sale Date
- ISBN
- 9781947793019
- Page Count
- 280
- Language
- English
- Dimensions
- 5½ x 8½
- Imprint
- Tin House
Meet the Author
Rosalie Knecht
Winner of the 2021 Edgar Award – G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award
Finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards
An NPR Best Book of the Year
"Gripping, subtle, magnificently written." ―The New York Times Book Review
"A delectable page-turner . . . Vera Kelly introduces a fascinating new spy to literature’s mystery canon―one we hope sticks around long beyond this snappy, intimate debut." ―Entertainment Weekly
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 page-turner and perceptive coming-of-age story, Who Is Vera Kelly? introduces an original, wry, and whip-smart female spy for the twenty-first century.
Finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards
An NPR Best Book of the Year
"Gripping, subtle, magnificently written." ―The New York Times Book Review
"A delectable page-turner . . . Vera Kelly introduces a fascinating new spy to literature’s mystery canon―one we hope sticks around long beyond this snappy, intimate debut." ―Entertainment Weekly
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 page-turner and perceptive coming-of-age story, Who Is Vera Kelly? introduces an original, wry, and whip-smart female spy for the twenty-first century.
Praise for Who Is Vera Kelly?
-
“Gripping, subtle, magnificently written . . . This is a cool, strolling boulevardier of a book, worldly, wry, unrushed but never slow, which casts its gaze upon the middle of the last century and forces us to consider how it might be failing us still.”
The New York Times Book Review -
“Forget about 007. This heroine has her own brand of spycraft. . . . Given the current popularity of ‘women-in-trouble’ psychological suspense tales, where much of the action takes place in the heroine’s anxious mind, it’s refreshing to read a novel where a capable young woman not only knows how to fix an electrical short in a transformer, but also how to maneuver around the homophobic biases of her own era.”
The Washington Post -
“A splendid genre-pushing thriller . . . A fractured coming-out in the repressive '50s primed Vera for a life of deception—but in Knecht's expert hands she's smart and complicated, yearning for connection in a tumultuous world.”
People Magazine
About the Imprint
Where the literary canon of tomorrow is born. Critically acclaimed titles that challenge, illuminate, and linger. Discover award-winning fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from emerging voices you’ll say you found first.
