Rosalie Knecht

'Who is Vera Kelly' was a quick, fun, energetic read. It follows a young woman recruited by the CIA and sent to Argentina in 1966 to monitor the unstable political situation. The narrative cuts between her mission and flashbacks to her past. The flashback chapters are shorter so as not to undermine the pace of espionage-related events. Vera is an excellent protagonist: independent and smart, but also inexperienced and slightly out of her depth. She navigates danger using her wits and technical expertise rather than violence. There are no James-Bond-licensed-to-kill shenanigans here, nor are things nearly as grim as in le Carré's spy novels. I enjoyed the vivid sense of place while Vera stayed in Buenos Aires and appreciated her ingenuity. There was tension without overwhelming peril, which made for a pleasantly escapist reading experience. It's also notable that Vera's queerness was a well-developed part of her character without defining her. I would have liked to see her personal political views explored in a little more depth: she treats the CIA's infiltration tasks as just a job and seems to take the global Soviet threat at face value. On the other hand, the political situation as she observes it in Buenos Aires is shown well, via student activism and monitoring of prominent figures. I also liked the twist at the end that the students were planning a protest against UK occupation of the Falklands! The farcical anticlimax of that worked rather well. If you want a book to relax with at the weekend, this is a good choice.… (more)

This wasn't quite what I expected, and it wasn't as much about a murder mystery with Vera doing amateur sleuthing or the like as it was about her being a gay woman in the 70s and navigating her life as a gay woman with a relationship with another woman who had a harder time with her family and them accepting her and her way of life.
This was about Vera and Max going to visit Max's parents, where there was chaos with her parents and their marriage ending. It was about whether and how Vera and Max were going to reveal themselves and their relationship to her parents, etc. This was also about how it was easier for them to just say they were friends and hide their relationship and true nature around certain people and in certain situations. It was also interesting yet strange to see the similarities and differences in how women and gays/homosexuality was viewed back then versus how it is now.
And once again, this story led to a woman being taken against her will and admitted into a hospital or mental institution of some sort for 'sick people. I've now read 3 or 4 books this year relating to history and women being put in mental institutions because of reasons that are not related to them being sick and needing to be in a hospital the way the hospitals described it back then.
I was a bit disappointed in this story as I was expecting something fun and great, like other amateur sleuth stories I've read. It was a decent read with some interesting things and a good storyline, but I feel like it should have been identified differently, perhaps as a light mystery with more historical fiction.
Thanks to NetGalley and Tin House for letting me read and review this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.… (more)