The title character of Veronica Clare (Laura Robinson) is a private investigator and partial owner of an Art Deco restaurant and jazz club in Chinatown, Los Angeles.

[10] Although she owns a Walther PPK, she uses it only for self-defense;[1][11] political theorist Philip Green wrote that the series portrays Clare's "skill as a private investigator" as her "weapons".

[21] Veronica Clare borrows elements from film noir, including "first-person narration, smoke-filled rooms, period cars and skin-tight dresses".

Some of these instances are diegetic as Clare's club features jazz music, which is sometimes played with "unusual combos" of instruments such as a combination of piano, bass guitar, and accordion.

[27] Television historians Tim Brooks and Earle F. Marsh believed this "Lauren Bacall look" was evoked by Clare's hairstyle and mysterious persona.

[2][28] Paul Henniger, writing for the Los Angeles Times, compared Clare's "rapid-talking, short, staccato outbursts" to Jack Webb and supporting characters to those in the television show Peter Gunn.

[31] This was the first time Lifetime had its own television shows, although in 1989, the network acquired The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd to produce new episodes following its NBC cancelation.

[6] Mike Hughes, while writing for the Gannett News Service, considered Veronica Clare a "crucial test of the notion that basic-cable channels can do one-hour, prime time series".

A fan of noir, Bloom had previously worked in the genre by writing the screenplay for the 1978 film adaptation of Raymond Chandler's 1939 novel The Big Sleep.

In a 1991 interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer, Bloom said he had difficulty pitching the series to networks, and attributed this to their resistance to air dramas with a young female lead.

[14] While promoting the series, she described herself as a fan of noir,[14] and discussed her appreciation for Bacall, Katharine Hepburn, and "those kinds of characters who could balance strength and femininity".

[6] Before Veronica Clare, Robinson was typecast as a villain or a femme fatale;[6] an example of this was her role as P'Gell Roxton in a 1987 television pilot based on the comic book character Spirit.

[45] Directors for the subsequent episodes were Mark Cullingham, Deborah Dalton, Donna Deitch, Amy Goldstein, Leon Ichaso, Frederick King Keller, and Rafal Zielinski.

[48] The series was shown after The Hidden Room and Confessions of Crime as a two-hour programming block, promoted as "Lifetime Original Night" and "Mystery Loves Company".

[1] The Baltimore Sun's Steve McKerrow felt it was a surprising choice, writing that shows for niche markets did not require immediate high ratings when compared to network television.

Sharbutt appreciated the show's lack of violence, and felt Bloom distinguished Clare from "today's hordes of wild-eyed geeks fresh from the University of Uzi".

[3] In the Los Angeles Times, Howard Rosenberg commended Bloom's script as having a "subtlety and a charming playfulness", but felt the show's quality rapidly deteriorated with its subsequent episodes.

Rosenberg panned the second episode "Reed" for its plot holes and unintentional comedy, comparing its campy tone to the 1991 film The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear.

[9] While reviewing "Veronica's Aunt", Mark Dawidziak appreciated how Bloom balanced the episode's plot with its 1940s noir aesthetic, but believed it was "at times too deliberate and plodding to sustain the pace".

[26][28] Citing the show as a negative example of Hollywood's fixation with Raymond Chandler, Helmbreck believed the episodes relied too much on clichés and stock characters.

[38] Reviewers were critical of the show's look and tone, including comments on Clare's role as a detective and the application of film noir elements to a more contemporary story.

[61] Mike Hughes and a writer for The Times Herald found Veronica Clare to be too reserved; when discussing the programming block, they instead recommended The Hidden Room for viewers who wanted a more emotional experience.

[38][61] As part of a negative review of the series, Helmbreck described Robinson as "an actress better suited to car commercials where sultry blondes only stroke gearshifts or hood ornaments and make animal sounds for their paycheck".

[61][63] The Orlando Sentinel's Nancy Pate cited the series, as well as the 1991 film adaptation of Sara Paretsky's V. I. Warshawski novels and Sue Grafton's success with Kinsey Millhone, as examples supporting this trend.

Cinema studies professor Linda Mizejewski believed Clare was another example of the "profile of enigmatic, noir detective heroine" used by other television shows.

[65] While interpreting Clare as a postfeminist character, film professor Nicholas de Villers wrote that the series consciously addresses the "gender expectations raised by her unusual occupation as a lone, female sleuth".

[67] Green wrote that the series identifies Clare's skills as separate from "masculine toughness" or "hypermasculine aggression" and focuses on her beauty without reducing her to "pure feminized sexuality".

[68] Gender and women's studies scholar Susan White noted that Veronica Clare's fashion and scenic design was a sharp contrast to the "codes of the hardboiled narrative and style".

[69] She questioned whether Clare's dual role as femme fatale and detective would ever connect with an audience, and felt her "restrained, smoldering sexuality" seemingly contradicted her "emphatic or identificatory modus operandi".

[70] While discussing Clare's frequent costume changes, Johnson associated the series with fashion photography and thought "Robinson's body was packaged and posed for the viewers' contemplation".