Skip to content
Responsive image
Vendor
Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories

WHO IS VERA KELLY?

Rosalie Knecht

WHO IS VERA KELLY? is a stylish and fascinating literary novel with interwoven elements of an unconventional spy thriller.
New York City, 1962.Vera Kellyis struggling to make rent and blend into the underground gay scene in Greenwich Village. She's working night shifts at a radio station whenher 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 that the Cold War makes for strange and unexpected bedfellows, and she's forced to take extreme measures to save herself.

Rosalie Knecht is a social worker in New York City and was born and raised in Pennsylvania. She is the translator of Cesar Aira's The Seamstress and the Windand has been a Center for Fiction Emerging Writer Fellowand a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Argentina. She has been published in Stonecutter and The New York Times. Her debut novel, Relief Map, was published by Tin House Books in 2016.
Available products
Book

Published 2018-06-12 by Tin House

Book

Published 2018-06-12 by Tin House

Comments

Knecht imbues the novel with emotional depth that allows for meditation on human connection and the ties that bind us to life's worth.

This splendid genre-pushing thriller alternates between Vera's 1966 CIA spy exploits in Buenos Aires and the lonely upbringing that got her there. A fractured family and her fitful 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.

It's quite clear that [Vera] is already the character readers have been waiting for. A riveting, satisfying novel.

WHO IS VERA KELLY? is a Most Anticipated Book of 2018 at Elle, The Huffington Post, Bustle, Library Journal, and Book Riot

The book proves to be both smart and surprising at every twist. Read more...

[Vera Kelly]'s past and present are told in alternating chapters, with all the edgy fun of classic noir but in an original voice that's fresh, brisk, and snappy. Hugely buzzing.

WHO IS VERA KELLY? is a Best Book of June at Harper's Bazaar, Chicago Review of Books, NYLON, Literary Hub, and more.

Knecht's novel is a slow-burn espionage thriller, a complex treatment of queer identity, and an immersive period piece all rolled into one 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. Read more...

Thanks to Rosalie Knecht's clever, hilarious writing, you'll find yourself wanting everyone you know to read it so that you can discuss together the wholly original, brilliantly subversive character that is Vera Kelly.

For a sneak peek, visit BuzzFeed, who are now running an exciting excerpt of Who Is Vera Kelly? on their site. Read more...

This is the literary spy novel you need in your life.

The book smartly juxtaposes Vera's rocky coming of age with her espionage adventures.

Gripping, subtle, magnificently written.

WHO IS VERA KELLY? is an Amazon best book of the month in Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense!

There's political intrigue, spycraft, solid location work, and all the things you would want from espionage fiction, but there's also something strange and subversive going on in this story. Knecht has a livewire intellect and I hope she sticks with spy fiction of some kind of another, because this is just the kind of jolt the genre (my beloved genre) needs now and again. Read more...

What kept me turning the pages in Who is Vera Kelly was not so much a desire to find out what Vera's spying would reveal about Román's plotting and its relationship to the coup. Instead, I found myself drawn to the bildungsroman folded into the spy novel. Balancing those two elements in alternating chapters that read like Vera's diary entries, Knecht imbues the novel with emotional depth that allows for meditation on human connection and the ties that bind us to life's worth. Read more...

WHO IS VERA KELLY? is the twisty, literary, woman-driven spy novel you've always wanted to read. Vera Kelly hopscotches from Brooklyn to Buenos Aires, fueled by gin and cigarettes, on the run from her past and equipped with a case of listening devices. But this is no ordinary adventure novel: Rosalie Knecht is a sensitive and gifted writer with a lyrical voice that imbues this dazzling novel unexpected emotional depth.

WHO IS VERA KELLY? by Rosalie Knecht was featured in BookRiot's Books Coming Out in 2018 You Should Mark Down Now Read more...

A spy novel that refuses to fit neatly into that genre, Who is Vera Kelly? is as sexy as it is brilliant, and as endearing as it is adrenaline-pumping. The novel leaves no question about Knecht's freakishly-good talents, and her ability to write an earnest narrative with enough complexity to merit at least a few re-reads. If Who is Vera Kelly? is any indication of what's to come, I can't wait to see what Knecht gifts us with next.

Korea: Delilah

Film rights optioned to Freeform