Rosalie Knecht’s Vera Kelly Is Not a Mystery—the 1967-set sequel to Who Is Vera Kelly? (2018)—finds the ex-spy in New York with a job editing film for WKNY. Near the book’s start, a male coworker overhears Vera begging her ex-girlfriend to reconsider their recent breakup. He reports Vera’s sexual orientation to their supervisor, who fires Vera for violating her employment contract’s character clause. Strapped for cash and inspired by her collection of Raymond Chandler novels, Vera opens a one-woman PI firm. Her first big case comes courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Ibarra—an elderly couple searching for their great-nephew, Félix, who vanished after his dissident parents sent him to NYC during the American invasion of the Dominican Republic. Vera goes undercover as a caseworker at Saint Jerome’s School for Boys—Félix’s last known location—but the closer she gets to finding him, the more she questions the Ibarras’ true movies. Knecht intersperses Vera’s witty, incisive narration with occasional scenes from Félix’s perspective, granting him agency and investing readers in the investigation’s outcome. Action and intrigue share the page with poignant social commentary, spotlighting the poisonous politics of the 1960s and capturing the era’s zeitgeist.