Vera Kelly is not a Mystery - Book Review

 

Vera Kelly is not a Mystery by Rosalie Knecht
Publication: June 16, 2020
Pages: 249 pages
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars ☆☆☆
Strengths: Interesting character and unique story
Weaknesses: Not super engaging

It's official - next year I'm doing away with 'weaknesses.' Cuz three stars is a pretty common rating for me. The book was good, I'd recommend it to people I think the subject may resonate with. Weaknesses? Meh. Not really, just not a book I NEED to own and will read again. It may be someone's favorite, but it just didn't happen to be my favorite.

With that being said...

Vera Kelly was so intriguing to me! The book was narrated in a contemporary fiction style, but takes place in the late 1960s. So Vera being a lesbian created some serious conflicts and issues for her. Which sucks. But also really helped form a lot of her story. On the same day, she is fired from her job (because there's a morals clause, and she's a lesbian) and her girlfriend leaves her. Definitely a bummer of a day.

Nothing in the classifieds sounds like a good fit, so the former CIA agent decides to hang out a shingle and launch her own private investigator business. After a few cheating spouse cases, she is hired to find a boy by a couple who says they're his aunt and uncle. As the case goes on, she gets closer to finding the boy, but the aunt and uncle don't seem to be who they say they are. 

Vera has to decide what to do with the results of her investigation, while also navigating friendships and love in her late 20s. Is this really what there is to adulting?

I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars. I found the style really interesting, and it made me feel like I could be living in the late 1960s while reading it. It was a unique story of a character in this time, that probably wouldn't have been published with all her secrets revealed back then. 

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for my copy of this book. I think it was originally an advance copy. Sorry it took me so long to read it, but pandemic. Who really knew which way was up last summer? Anyway, receiving the book for free did not influence my review.