Invalid Record

Libby/OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain

False

formats

1. • fileName: WhoIsVeraKellyAVeraK_9781947793026_3758460
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 2518032
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781947793026
   • rights:
     1. • type: Copying
        • value: 0
     2. • type: Printing
        • value: 0
     3. • type: Lending
        • value: 0
     4. • type: ReadAloud
        • value: 0
     5. • type: ExpirationRights
        • value: 0
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
   • onSaleDate: 6/13/2018
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=a48e60f0-a690-4cb3-9a51-dedb1800f745&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
2. • fileName: WhoIsVeraKellyAVeraK_3758460
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B07957HHBW
   • name: Kindle Book
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-kindle
   • onSaleDate: 6/13/2018
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=a48e60f0-a690-4cb3-9a51-dedb1800f745&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
3. • fileName: WhoIsVeraKellyAVeraK_9781947793026_3758460
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 1485468
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781947793026
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-overdrive
   • onSaleDate: 6/13/2018
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=a48e60f0-a690-4cb3-9a51-dedb1800f745&.epub-sample.overdrive.com

keywords

1. • value: Cold war
2. • value: greenwich village
3. • value: 1960s
4. • value: witty
5. • value: feminist
6. • value: spy
7. • value: mystery
8. • value: Gay
9. • value: Argentina
10. • value: LGBTQ
11. • value: Buenos Aires
12. • value: Page Turner
13. • value: espionage
14. • value: queer
15. • value: Thriller
16. • value: CIA
17. • value: new york city
18. • value: series
19. • value: gripping
20. • value: Literary
21. • value: edgar award
22. • value: coming of age story
23. • value: dan chaon
24. • value: amy stewart
25. • value: exhilarating
26. • value: relief map
27. • value: lambda literary
28. • value: propulsive
29. • value: rosalie knecht
30. • value: who is vera kelly
31. • value: vera kelly
32. • value: vera kelly is not a mystery
33. • value: vera kelly lost and found
34. • value: putnams sons sue grafton award

creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Knecht, Rosalie
   • bioText: Rosalie Knecht is the author of Who is Vera Kelly?, Vera Kelly is not a Mystery, winner of the Edgar Award, G.P. Putnam's Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, as well as a Relief Map, and a translation of Aira's The Seamstress and the Wind. She lives in Jersey City, NJ.
   • name: Rosalie Knecht

publishDate

2018-06-12T00:00:00-04:00

isOwnedByCollections

True

title

Who Is Vera Kelly? (A Vera Kelly Story)

fullDescription

Winner of the 2021 Edgar Award – 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.

seriesId

747736

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: The New York Times Book Review
   • content: Gripping, subtle, magnificently written . . . This is a cool, strolling boulevardier of a book, worldly, wry, unrushed but never slow, which casts its gaze upon the middle of the last century and forces us to consider how it might be failing us still.
2. • premium: False
   • source: Entertainment Weekly
   • content: 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.
3. • premium: False
   • source: People Magazine
   • content: A splendid genre-pushing thriller . . . A fractured 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.
4. • premium: False
   • source: The Washington Post
   • content: Forget about 007. This heroine has her own brand of spycraft. . . . Given the current popularity of 'women-in-trouble' psychological suspense tales, where much of the action takes place in the heroine's anxious mind, it's refreshing to read a novel where a capable young woman not only knows how to fix an electrical short in a transformer, but also how to maneuver around the homophobic biases of her own era.
5. • premium: False
   • source: BBC Culture
   • content: A refreshing and idiosyncratic Cold War spy novel.
6. • premium: False
   • source: Kirkus Reviews
   • content: The character readers have been waiting for. A riveting, satisfying novel.
7. • premium: False
   • source: Library Journal, Hot Picks
   • content: A buzzing, smoky, gin-soaked charmer.
8. • premium: False
   • source: Library Journal, Most Anticipated Books of Spring/Summer
   • content: When we first meet Vera Kelly, she's a troubled 1950s teenager who's overdosed on Equanil. Next she's in explosive 1960s Buenos Aires after being recruited by the CIA ("I could be charming if I wanted to. There were basic tricks"). . . . All the edgy fun of classic noir but in an original voice that's fresh, brisk, and snappy. Hugely buzzing.
9. • premium: False
   • source: Amy Stewart, New York Times bestselling author of GIRL WAITS WITH GUN
   • content: 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.
10. • premium: False
    • source: Dan Chaon, New York Times bestselling author of ILL WILL
    • content: In Who Is Vera Kelly?, Rosalie Knecht has created a truly fresh and original take on the spy novel, full of suspense and surprise and beautifully observed details of its cold war setting. Best of all is Vera herself, a memorable heroine who seems destined to become an icon of the genre. This is a remarkable and wonderful book!
11. • premium: False
    • source: Courtney Maum, author of I AM HAVING SO MUCH FUN HERE WITHOUT YOU
    • content: Sardonic, intelligent, and thrillingly original, Rosalie Knecht has not only revitalized the female spy novel with her feisty, indeterminable heroine, she's also joyfully queered it. I loved this book and I loved Vera. Read this book right now!"
12. • premium: False
    • source: Bomb Magazine
    • content: 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.
13. • premium: False
    • source: Entertainment Tonight
    • content: Rosalie Knecht performs the seemingly effortless sleight of hand you'd expect from any talented spy . . . . The book proves to be both smart and surprising at every twist.
14. • premium: False
    • source: Signature Reads
    • content: One thing Vera Kelly is not is a standard-issue spy. . . . Knecht has written a hybrid novel that is both literary in its attention to character and...
15. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      April 1, 2018
      A young undercover spy is forced to improvise after her handler goes dark during the Argentinian coup in 1966.In 1957, Vera Kelly is a suicidal teenage girl living in Chevy Chase, Maryland, struggling to come to terms with her sexuality; she's sent to juvenile detention after multiple conflicts with her mother. Less than a decade later, she's a 25-year-old CIA agent skilled in electronics, embedded in Buenos Aires during the Cold War. Going undercover as a Canadian student, Kelly befriends a group of young scholars suspected of being KGB agents; she surveils their activities during the day and spends her nights transcribing conversations from inside the Argentinian vice president's office, which is bugged. As the president's tentative grasp on power weakens, Vera makes plans to leave the country as soon as the army takes control of the government. The borders close more quickly than expected, however, and she's forced to go into hiding and hope her cover hasn't been blown. In this novel, a coming-of-age story meets spy thriller, Knecht (Relief Map, 2016) deftly explores how Vera's alienation from her mother and various romantic partners leads to her becoming a CIA recruit and how her self-confidence continues to be both challenged and reaffirmed in Argentina. Knecht's crisp prose moves swiftly as Vera tails suspects and also accommodates moments of increasing self-awareness: "As Gerry had said, if things went bad, I could be killed. And yet, in the place where my fear should have been, there was a blank space. I felt that I had been living for a long time in a place beyond fear, where my life was contingent and didn't amount to much anyway." Throughout the novel, Vera wonders who she will be should she survive this assignment, but even in her deep uncertainty, it's quite clear that she is already the character readers have been waiting for.A riveting, satisfying novel.

      COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

16. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      April 9, 2018
      Knecht’s solid second novel (following The Relief Map) opens in 1966, when 25-year-old Vera Kelly is sent to Buenos Aires by the CIA to infiltrate a rumored KGB cell, gladly leaving behind her life in New York. Ever since a falling-out with her abusive mother as a teenager, Vera’s life consists of her work at a radio station and her occasional discreet trips to underground lesbian bars in Greenwich Village. But in Buenos Aires, Vera learns to lead a spy’s double life. Vera’s observations of the politically charged city are straightforward and sharp: “Bars where students liked to go were nearly empty. Plainclothes police lounged conspicuously in the windows.” As Vera consorts undercover with the radical students assumed to be in touch with the Soviets, a military coup and a personal betrayal threaten her work, leaving her with the new task of trying to make it out of Argentina alive. While Vera is a charming narrator, especially among the ranks of spy thriller leads, her work among the radicals is never as gripping as it should be, nor are the flashbacks following her trajectory from reckless teenager to CIA operative. Still, with some suspension of disbelief, this is a promising subversion of the classic espionage novel, one which would lend itself well to a sequel or series to come.

popularity

1457

links

• self:
  • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BbQAAAA2i/products/a48e60f0-a690-4cb3-9a51-dedb1800f745/metadata
  • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json

id

a48e60f0-a690-4cb3-9a51-dedb1800f745

starRating

3.6

readingOrder

1

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0044-1/{A48E60F0-A690-4CB3-9A51-DEDB1800F745}IMG100.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0044-1/{A48E60F0-A690-4CB3-9A51-DEDB1800F745}IMG200.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0044-1/{A48E60F0-A690-4CB3-9A51-DEDB1800F745}IMG150.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0044-1/{A48E60F0-A690-4CB3-9A51-DEDB1800F745}IMG400.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg

isPublicPerformanceAllowed

False

languages

1. • code: en
   • name: English

subjects

1. • value: Fiction
2. • value: Literature
3. • value: Thriller
4. • value: LGBTQIA+ (Fiction)

publishDateText

06/12/2018

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 9781947793019

mediaType

eBook

shortDescription

Winner of the 2021 Edgar Award – 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...

sortTitle

Who Is Vera Kelly (A Vera Kelly Story)

crossRefId

3758460

series

A Vera Kelly Story

publisher

Tin House Books

bisacCodes

1. • code: FIC006000
   • description: Fiction / Thrillers / Espionage
2. • code: FIC018000
   • description: Fiction / LGBTQ+ / Lesbian
3. • code: FIC019000
   • description: Fiction / Literary