28 September 2022.
ISBN: 978-0-85730-828-3 (PB)
The book is set in 1971 in America. It starts in Brooklyn, where the narrator, Private Investigator, Vera Kelly, shares her apartment with her girlfriend, Maxine, who is always known as Max. Vera is alienated from her mother and Max is estranged from the majority of her family, but they are happy together and have a warm and supportive friendship group. Vera’s only regret is that she cannot afford to buy Max the good quality piano that such a talented musician deserves.
Their happy lifestyle is disrupted when Max’s sister, the only family member that she has kept in touch with, contacts Max to tell her that their parents have separated and plan to divorce. Her mother has moved into a hotel and her father has become engaged to a woman younger than his own children and has also fallen under the influence of a predatory charlatan. Max hates the thought of returning to the family who insulted and rejected her when she was twenty-one, but she feels compelled to return to the family estate in California to find out what is going on and to support Inez, her sister. Knowing that Max is torn between dread and anger when she contemplates her family, Vera is adamant that she will accompany her.
Vera had known that Max came from a wealthy family but until they arrive at the estate, she had not realised how overwhelmingly rich and influential they are. For the first time she discovers how terrifying and disorientating Max must have found it when her family threw her out, and the young woman who had never in her life even handled money had to survive alone and penniless. Although Inez seems pleased to see Max, their father is far less welcoming and soon becomes hostile. Max’s father’s new girlfriend, Callisto, is very much what she expected, shallow, immature, and decorative. The occultist charlatan, who calls himself St James, has immense influence over Max’s father and she is certain he is a con man exploiting the arrogant but gullible older man. Max’s father is very rude to her and Vera and makes it clear that neither of them are welcome there.
Max and Vera have been housed in a
small, distant cottage on the estate. They go to bed, planning to return home
the next day. However, when Vera wakes up the next morning, Max has gone. At first
Vera is not concerned, assuming that Max will soon return, then she feels hurt
and somewhat annoyed that Max could leave her alone in such an uncomfortable
situation. Then fear creeps in. Vera encounters Inez and her husband and
children leaving the estate and Inez is visibly distressed. For the first time,
Vera realises that it is possible, even probable, that Max may not simply turn
up again. Vera feels out of her depth but is determined to find the woman she
loves. Vera sets off to hunt for Max, driving the expensive car that had been a
gift to Max from her family before they rejected her, which she had left at the
estate when they threw her out. It is only when she has been on the road for a
while that Vera looks at the documents in the car and realises that Max’s
family have changed the ownership of the car. To add to her other troubles, she
is driving a very noticeable car that could have been reported stolen, through
a part of the country where she has no friends and far too many enemies. Guided
by the only clue she has, the manuscript of the opera that Max has been secretly
writing, Vera continues on her quest, desperate to find Max and rescue her,
although she is haunted by the fear that she will never know what has happened
and Max has vanished forever.
Vera Kelly Lost and Found is the third book in the series featuring Vera
Kelly. It is a novel that illustrates that the 1970s, while still within many
people’s living memory, was a truly different time, both in attitudes and in
the difficulty of getting information in an era before internet and social
networking, when it was much harder to find people who have disappeared,
whether of their own volition or through foul play. The book has an interesting
plot in which the tension increases with every page as Vera realises that Max
is not going to reappear and that something very bad must have happened to her.
The protagonists are engaging, and their relationship is sensitively but warmly
portrayed. Vera Kelly Lost and Found is an interesting and enjoyable
read which I recommend.
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Reviewer: Carol Westron
Rosalie Knecht is a social worker in New York City and was born and raised in Pennsylvania. She is the translator of Cesar Aira's The Seamstress and the Wind and a Center for Fiction Emerging Writer Fellow. Her debut novel, Relief Map, was published by Tin House Books in 2016.
https://promotingcrime.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/carol-westron.html www.carolwestron.com
http://carolwestron.blogspot.co.uk/
To read a review of Carol
latest book click on the title
The Curse of the Concrete Griffin
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