Vera Kelly: Lost and Found

Everyone's favourite 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-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. '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 PRAISE FOR THE VERA KELLY SERIES 'Wonderfully sardonic yet compassionate heroine. Definitely a series to watch' - Mail on Sunday 'Vera, outwardly cool but inwardly seething, makes for great company. Rosalie Knecht - proving it can be done - has created something truly original' - Times (Crime Club) 'This smart, stylish mystery fizzes with wit and intrigue' - Irish Times (Crime Books of the Year) 'Rosalie Knecht is an audacious talent, and her latest novel a propulsive, subversive gem. [Vera is] one of the most compelling and complex characters in modern fiction... an intriguing mystery that will keep you guessing until the very end' - Lauren Wilkinson, author of American Spy 'Rosalie Knecht has resurrected the detective novel for the 21st century. Sharp, self-possessed, and with a nuanced, meaningful knowledge of realities and histories well beyond her own, Kelly's take on who's lying and why makes for riveting reading in every scene. I tore through this book' - Idra Novey, author of Those Who Knew