Who Is Vera Kelly?

I tore through this book, going on a wild ride with Vera Kelly. Many, many thanks to Tin House for the ARC of this delightful novel. Alternating between Vera’s strange childhood and her presence as a spy in Latin America, this story gradually reveals the question in the novel’s title. Truthfully, the lonely Vera may have little idea who she is either or at least she hasn’t synthesized how she ended up in Argentina and why.

Anyone who picks up this book will be in for a treat and as mentioned, a very wild ride.

“Call the State Department. I’m CIA.”

Ooooh, this was good. Part spy thriller, part character study, and part historical fiction.

This book is told through a delicate interweaving of past and present. The past chapters chronicle the Vera’s youth, her troubled relationship with her mother, her brief stint in juvie, her sexual awakening, and the work that eventually leads to her recruitment by the CIA. The present chapters take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, circa 1966, in the months prior to the Argentine Revolution – which led to the country’s period of a military-dominated authoritarian-beurocratic state.

If you go into this expecting full-blown James Bond, you’ll be disappointed. It doesn’t just jump right into the action; it sets the stage first. The first 40% is mostly made up of stake-out mode and flashback chapters.

That’s not to say they’re boring. I flew through them. It’s obvious Knecht did her research here, and because of this, that awesome thing happened to me where I forgot that I was reading and simply felt like I was living this story through Vera’s eyes.

Her specialty is electronics, namely wiretapping. Her contact helps her get a bug placed in the vice president’s office and sets her up with a room to listen from. She’s also posing as a student, working against the KGB influence she’s been told is enthralling some of the up and coming Marxists at the university.

Vera is a really relatable character. This is her first big solo mission, so you’re right there with her when it comes to nerves and anticipation while you’re reading.

Around the halfway mark things start to go sideways. A military coup, betrayal, entrapment, followed by Vera’s wild attempt to escape the country alongside the students she was spying on.

I can’t recommend this enough for anyone looking for a women-driven, realistic, spy story.

From what I can tell, this isn’t a series, and I’m a bit bummed about that. Because I would love to read novel after novel about Vera’s exploits, and watch her really come into her own as a CIA agent.

ONE CAN ONLY HOPE THE AUTHOR SEES THIS REVIEW AND COMES THROUGH FOR ME.

I throughly enjoyed this spy novel which was more of a character study. There are some echoes of John LeCarre here. Primarily, this is a fabulous character study. The clever chronology works well (Two alternating timelines: beginning in 1958, when Vera is a high school student; and in the midst of a government assignment in Buenos Aires in 1966. Eventually, the first timeline catches up with the 1966 story. Fun and fast-paced.

Love historical fiction, and this story was really unique and compelling! I would recommend this to fans of Deanna Raybourn, Tasha Alexander or Rhys Davis.