Who Is Vera Kelly? — Rosalie Knecht

Winner of the 2021 Edgar Award â€" 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.