Free Love - Hardcover

Meyers, Annette

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0892966947 ISBN 13: 9780892966943

Publisher: Mysterious Pr, 1999

Synopsis

In a mystery set in New York's Greenwich Village during the Roaring Twenties, newly published poet Olivia Brown, determined to experience everything her bohemian neighborhood has to offer, suddenly finds herself embroiled in a murder and on the trail of a killer bent on revenge

About this title

About the Author

ANNETTE MEYERS, who was an executive assistant to Broadway's Hal Prince and then a headhunter for a Wall Street executive search firm, is best known for her popular Smith & Wetzon novels. She also collaborates with her husband, Martin, under the name Maan Meyers, on the highly acclaimed Dutchman mysteries. Annette Meyers lives in New York City, where she is currently at work on her second Olivia Brown mystery.

Reviews

Olivia Brown, the heroine of this launch of a new series from the author of the Smith and Wetzon novels (The Big Killing, etc.), is the "it" girl of 1920s Greenwich Village. "Inspired," as the galley copy reads, by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Olivia is cultivating a reputation as a bohemian poetess and a ravishing "good-time girl," with puppy-eyed artists and writers proposing marriage to her at every turn. But Olivia is staunch in her commitment to her heart and to her free-spirited lifestyle ("Stop, Edward. You know I love you, in my way. But it is I who would be morally dishonest if we stayed together"). Besides, she's preoccupied with discovering who among her devoted circle may be stalking her, and whether that stalker is responsible for murdering her "doppelg?nger"Aa transvestite made up to resemble Olivia, found in a soggy courtyard outside a popular speakeasy, his throat carefully slashed. When the police start asking Olivia impertinent questions, she turns to her tenant Harry Melville, a boozy PI with underworld connections and a limited vocabulary ("Bloody hell!"). Then Harry is attacked, presumably by the stalker, leaving the intrepid poet on her own to solve the apparently related crimes and to write her solipsistic, seemingly unironic poetry ("Abandon mind? There's no rebate/But death, who'll take us in mid-dance"). Meyers deftly evokes Prohibition Era Greenwich Village, a jittery, gin-soaked place infested with "romantic fever." But with its silly plot, interchangeable characters and pretentious dialogue, this series opener is as lightweight as the heroine's flapper physique. Agent, Stuart Krichevsky. Mystery Guild featured alternate; 3-city author tour. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Aspiring poet Olivia Brown is the new heroine from the creator of Wall Street headhunters Xenia Smith and Leslie Wetzon (The Groaning Board, etc.). The time is 1920, the place Greenwich Village, where Olivia, along with her best friend and housekeeper Mattie, had moved two years ago after losing her fianc in the war. A house had been left to Olivia by her great-aunt Evangeline, with the proviso that the ground-floor tenant remain as long as he chose. He turns out to be Harry Melville, a private detective whose services are badly needed in Olivia's new life. Her poems are being bought by Vanity Fair; she has minor roles in the productions of the Provincetown Playhouse and has become a familiar face at speakeasies like Chumley's. But all is not well. It's in Chumley's courtyard that she and boyfriend of the moment Whit Sawyer stumble over the body of a woman wrapped in a bloody blanket. The woman is a man named MacKey made up to look like Olivia. After our heroine is subjected to a series of ominous, anonymous threats, Harry uses a clutch of his tough street pals to watch over her and gets badly beaten for his trouble. Theres more to come before the unconvincing murderer is revealed. The plotting is overfancy and undermotivated, but the picture of Village life in the 20s rings true, and the poems are an unexpected bonus. If she survives her ever-present cigarettes and gin, Olivia will surely return.(Author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In this new series, gorgeous, daring Olivia Brown, who's enjoying life in 1920s Greenwich Village, starts sleuthing when she stumbles upon a dead body on the way to the local speakeasy. Meyers's Smith and Wetzon series does so well in libraries that titles have been picked up for Baker & Taylor's print-on-demand Replica Books.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Mysterious Pr
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0892966947
• ISBN 13: 9780892966943
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240