Published 15th September 2022 by Verve Books.
From the cover of the book:
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.
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It is 1971 and Vera Kelly finally seems to have settled down to domestic harmony. She and her girlfriend Max Comstock are living happily together in Vera's Brooklyn home, enjoying the company of their wide circle of friends, and campaigning on the fringes of the growing Gay Rights Movement.
Then Max receives a letter from the sister she has not seen for years, and it throws their relationship into unknown territory. Max's parents are about to get divorced, and her father has moved his much younger girlfriend into the family home - in the company of a sinister, svengali-type con man called St James. Max's sister is worried about what this means for their mother. The only way for Max to find out what is going on in her estranged family in Los Angeles is to make a very reluctant trip back to California - something she vowed she would never do.
Max has always been reticent about sharing the details of her past, and although Vera knows she comes from wealthy stock, she is shocked to discover the sheer scale of the Comstock's wealth when they arrive at the family estate in Bel Air. The atmosphere between Max and her boorish father is tense from the word go, especially as they have not seen each other since the ugly scenes that led to Max being cut-off at twenty-one, when it was discovered that she was a lesbian.
The tension explodes into a blistering argument over an excruciatingly awkward dinner, when Max confronts her father about his bizarre behaviour and the way he is being taken advantage of. Max and Vera realise it was a mistake to come here, and agree to return home to Brooklyn the next day. However, when Vera wakes up in the morning Max has disappeared, and her family are behaving very strangely. Something is not right about this, and Vera must put her detective skills to the test to find her missing girlfriend.
Vera Kelly Lost and Found is the third and final instalment in the wonderful Vera Kelly trilogy. This time Vera must use all the many talents she has developed over the course of her adventures as a CIA operative and private detective, in her most important mission yet, as she tries to find out what has happened to the love of her life at the hands of her despicable father and his unsettling friends.
Vera's quest takes her to some surreal and perilous places as she hunts for clues to Max's whereabouts, making it a mix of darkly comic road-trip caper, and slick noir crime mystery - including an extremely odd encounter with a drugged-up film crew at the Comstock family ranch, which Knecht uses to weave the most delicious hippy cult vibes around St James' part of the story. The shadow of the influence of Max's wealthy family looms over Vera's every move, which keeps the tense story-line absolutely gripping, but Vera is no stranger to dangerous situations, and she draws on every ounce of her ingenuity and unconventional past experiences to see things through to the bitter-sweet end. The fear of spoilers prevents me from revealing where Vera's search takes her, but I can say that Knecht has her risking everything to complete her quest, including her own sanity - and she receives help from someone who will be familiar to readers of her previous adventure in the Dominican Republic, Vera Kelly is not a Mystery.
One of my favourite things about this series is the way that each book has its own distinct feel, which has kept things fresh and interesting. In each book, Vera has faced very different trials, in very different places, and through it all she has been on the most captivating journey of self-discovery. In this book, we see Vera at her most vulnerable, but also at her strongest, because she is finally sure about what she wants from life. Intriguingly, she also reaches a decision about whether she is ready to show the real Vera to the world without fear, which brings about a very moving development in her own family circumstances.
I find myself rather sad to have reached the final book of this trilogy, as I have come to be extremely fond of Vera. In Vera, Rosalie Knecht has created a bold, brilliant kick-ass protagonist, and set her to work in three absolute page-turning adventures, but she has also done so much more by touching on an abundance of compelling social and political themes. This has been one of my favourite under-the-radar series of the past couple of years, and it really does deserve to be wider known. These books are a treat!
Vera Kelly Lost and Found is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to Verve Books for sending me a paperback copy of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
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