Free Love

by Annette Meyers

Book Overview

In 1920s Greenwich Village, poet Olivia Brown revels in the freedom of her neighborhood, where artists, actors, and writers gather and romance isn't played by any rules. Olivia does as she likes, dresses as she likes, and loves as she likes -- until the night she trips over a the body of a dead woman. Olivia then finds herself on the trail of a killer bent on a most personal revenge.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446609218
• ISBN13: 9780446609210
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Free Love

Olivia was having the time of her life. She could finally have fun and concentrate on her work at the same time. After drinking with her friend Whitt, they stumble out into the rain and discover a women's body. Shortly after this she starts to be harassed. With the help of her friend Harry, a private investigator, she cracks the case, and finds that it was Bennett. He was trying to get everyone out of the way so he could run away with Olivia. He also was harassing her so she would run to him with all of her problems and have a shoulder to lean on. This book was very suspicful, and I recommend it whoever loves a good mystery book. The book is good because it shows what life was like back in the roaring 20's. A lot of the women started to come out of their normal modest life and started to "spice things up". Olivia and her friends drank alcohol, which became a lot more popular with women around the 20's, when prohibition started. They were free spirits. Some were poets, while others were actresses, singers, or dancers. But none the less they lived happy lives. The author has a very creative way of writing her mystery books. She changes things from the predictable motives. For example, in this book sometimes the killer didn't have a set motive for killing a person. She made it so that readers had to think about what ties the person to his main motive. Which makes it ideal for someone who likes books that make them think. This book is very suspenseful. Just when you find out something, it twists and goes ina completely different direction than expected. When Olivia and Whitt find the woman's dead body, in a few days she comes to find out that the women is actually a man, who is obsessed with her, and wants to become her. When the next murder takes place, the only way they found the murder weapon was when Olivia was playing around with a piano and she realizes that one of the keys sounds funny, and she opens the lid, and finds the knife. Little did I know that the piano from earlier in the book would come back to play such an important role. Free Love, by Anne Meyers, is a wonder mystery that takes place during the flashy period of the 1920's. You will instantly fall in love with the characters, especially Olivia Brown. Read this if you want to read a book that suspenseful mystery.

Different

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.

Amoral lifestyle mixed with murder

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.

A wonderful new character in a great setting.

This is a departure for Meyers, who up until now has written wonderfully about Wall St. in the great Smith and Weston series. The time is 1920 and the new character is a poet named Olivia Brown who lives in Greenwich Village and runs around with other artists from pub to pub when she's not working. She accidentally gets herself involved in a murder (naturally) and I for one didn't figure it out, which is odd for me. It's beautifully written, warm and funny but with a gritty edge. This is a must read. A+

whimsical-a prohibition beatnik is the star who shines

In the late sixties, young people flocked to Haight-Asbury seeking free love, intellectual stimulation, and easy access to drugs. The flower children thought they discovered the true meaning of freedom. However, in 1920 in Greenwich Village, free spirits lived outside society's even stricter rules.Olivia Brown refuses to live by any rules other than her own. When her guardian dies, she inherits an almost empty house in the Village. Her recently published poetry received attention from Vanity Fair and Vogue. She has many swains, but is selective as to who her current lover of the moment is. Though prohibition is the law, she drinks whenever she wants to imbibe.On the way to a production that she is a participant, Olivia finds the corpse of her own doppelganger. She later learns that the deceased is actually a male. Olivia begins sleuthing. However, anyone she questions turns up murdered. Someone is destroying her property, leaving behind ugly items for her to easily find, and painting her as a serial killer. The poet knows someone stalks her with a vengeance that would frighten a lesser person.Annette Meyers captures the essence of the bohemian movement so fully that the atmosphere of 1920 Greenwich Village feels eerily similar to that of the sixties. FREE LOVE contains an entertaining historical mystery that centers on a unique amateur sleuth. However, the tale provides a social commentary on individuals who choose to live outside society's norm, a circumstance that leads to freedom and pain. Ms. Meyer's opening gamut will thrill sub-genre fans who will want more tales from the 1920's Lower Manhattan.