Free Love

Rating:
Summary: Different
Review: Annette Meyers delivers a wonderfully different mystery and an egregarious eccentric in the Flapper era poet, Olivia Brown. Olivia might not match Sherlock Holmes but the writing style of FREE LOVE is a delight and the plot satisfying. I enjoy quirky books, and FREE LOVE captures the Jazz Age's daring people, clothing and lifestyles. Looking forward to Olivia's next adventure in the series.

Rating:
Summary: A weak debut
Review: I loved the novel Free Love. It is set in the Greenwich Village of the 20's. It has wonderful atmosphere and characters. She really captures the sprit of the prohibition era. The murder mystery is engrossing, and it seems that the Village never really changes. The main character, Olivia Brown is a poet, part-time investigator, and self professed bohemian. She is a little too obsessed with the choice of her next lover. It almost seems like job interviews. If the author would place less emphasis on that and more on the story it would flow much better.

Rating:
Summary: It would be better if...
Review: Olivia wasn't so in love with herself. The character is shallow and boring. I wouldn't mind her if she would shut up about all her lovers. Yeah, got it, men like you...probably because she is sleeping with the entire city. I suppose she is written to be stubborn and relentless but she succeeds at being foolish.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty good debut!
Review: Pretty good mystery set in 1920's Greenwich Village. Olivia Brown is a poetess whose fiancee was killed in WWI. She inherits a house in the Village, and, along with it, a tenant, Harry, a P.I. One night, she stumbles across a dead body that looks suspiciously like her, and she enlists Harry's help to find out what's going on.

Good depiction of flappers, Prohibition, and the Jazz Age. The character development was a bit shallow, and I hope the second book will improve on that. There's a lot of potential here!

Rating:
Summary: Amoral lifestyle mixed with murder
Review: While I enjoyed this Annette Meyers murder mystery enough to keep reading, I tired of the cigarette smoke and gin and sexual dissipation. I don't think I am really old-fashioned, but I found Olivia Brown to be young and shallow.

Her bohemian life in the environs of Greenwich Village circa 1920 is intriguing enough for a relaxing read, however. And, I, too, was not sure I had the culprit clearly named until pretty close to the end. Actually, the obsession of the men around Olivia (Oliver to her cronies) is believable, if one realizes that they are all gin-soaked and willing to participate in any free love (sex) made so readily available.

The strong friendship between Olivia and her caretaker Mattie is touching. Once again we see the faithful servant class guarding and protecting their upper class employer. Lucky Olivia to have inherited this brownstone from her rebellious great aunt Vangie, to have inherited Mattie's help, and to have inherited in perpetuity, a private eye tenant, Harry Melville.

Olivia's interjected poems reflect the supposed burning genius of an artist whose decadent life fuels her gift. Some of those "inspirations" fell cold on me. Olivia's theatrical experience, particularly in O'Neill's off-Broadway introduction of The Emperor Jones, was quite sensual and led me to believe that it would not have taken much for Olivia to have shared a bi-sexual liason with the women in her group.

I am sure I will try the next Olivia Brown novel when Meyers publishes it. In the meantime I will try her Smith and Wetzon and her co-written Dutchman series. Having seen Meyers and her spouse Marty on CBS Sunday Morning as a featured couple, I want to read what they have written, just for kicks.

Rating:
Summary: New York City in the 20's-- Booze, Bohemianism, and Mystery
Review: World War I has just ended. The men who are coming home have come, Prohibition is in place. Women have the Vote, bob their hair and are trying all of the new freedoms open to them including the right to pursue casual sexual liasons.

Olivia's fiancee died in the War, her remaining family killed by the influenza, finds herself the possessor of a house in Greenwich Village that had belonged to her Great Aunt Vangie. There she resides with her maid Mattie and her downstairs tenant, Harry Melville, a private investigator. She writes poetry successfully, drinks and smokes to excess and enjoys men with an almost frenzied heedlessness.

But one day while on the way to meet with some of her other friends she discovers a body lying in pool of water in the street. In the days that follow she receives threatening messages, Harry is beaten up in an alley and, as she tries to discover what is happening, a trail of deaths follow her.

There's one annoying moment when Olivia has a lapse of intelligence, other than that, the book does a good job of creating a believable picture of Jazz Age Greenwich village, from it's Irish gangsters to the Provincetown Players.

Rating:
Summary: New York City in the 20's-- Booze, Bohemianism, and Mystery
Review: World War I has just ended. The men who are coming home have come, Prohibition is in place. Women have the Vote, bob their hair and are trying all of the new freedoms open to them including the right to pursue casual sexual liasons.

Olivia's fiancee died in the War, her remaining family killed by the influenza, finds herself the possessor of a house in Greenwich Village that had belonged to her Great Aunt Vangie. There she resides with her maid Mattie and her downstairs tenant, Harry Melville, a private investigator. She writes poetry successfully, drinks and smokes to excess and enjoys men with an almost frenzied heedlessness.

But one day while on the way to meet with some of her other friends she discovers a body lying in pool of water in the street. In the days that follow she receives threatening messages, Harry is beaten up in an alley and, as she tries to discover what is happening, a trail of deaths follow her.

There's one annoying moment when Olivia has a lapse of intelligence, other than that, the book does a good job of creating a believable picture of Jazz Age Greenwich village, from it's Irish gangsters to the Provincetown Players.