Free Love (Oeb) [Import] [Hardcover]

Annette Meyers (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Oxmoor House (January 2001)
• ISBN-10: 0759520747
• ISBN-13: 978-0759520745
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)

More About the Author

ANNETTE MEYERS


Annette Meyers was born in Manhattan, grew up on a chicken farm in Toms River, NJ, graduated from Douglass College, Rutgers University, and came running back to NYC as fast as she could. She is the author of 8 Smith and Wetzon Wall Street and Broadway mysteries, using her experience as a Wall Street headhunter and arbitrator, as well as her Broadway experience as Harold Prince's assistant. The most recent novel is Hedging. Her other works: 2 Olivia Brown 1920s Greenwich Village mysteries, Free Love and Murder Me Now; and a stand-alone psychological suspense novel: Repentances. Her noir short stories have appeared in many anthologies. One of these stories- "You Don't Know Me" - was included in James Ellroy's edited Best American Mystery Stories, 2002.
As Maan Meyers, she and her husband Martin write The Dutchman series. There are now 7 history mysteries in the series, and numerous short stories that feature characters from the novels. The setting is New York in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The 7th novel - The Organ Grinder - set in 1899, was published in October, 2008. THE DUTCHMAN, the first book in the series, is now available on Kindle
Annette was the 10th president of Sister in Crime. Website:www.meyersmysteries.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful new character in a great setting., October 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Free Love (Olivia Brown Mysteries) (Hardcover)

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+

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars whimsical-a prohibition beatnik is the star who shines, September 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Free Love (Olivia Brown Mysteries) (Hardcover)

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.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A weak debut, February 5, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Free Love (Mass Market Paperback)

Olivia (or Oliver as she is known to her Greenwich Village friends) Brown is the kind of historical female sleuth that readers of this genre would love to love. Unfortunately, beyond telling us that this is 1920 Greenwich Village and the Prohibition puts a cramp in the artistic lifestyle, author Annette Meyers does little to evoke a true sense of place. The dialogue reads as very 1990s and I was surprised to read that a character attended a lecture by the famous woman rights advocate Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who died in 1902.

The plot is also weak, centering on a case of obsession. I thought that the perpetrator was very obvious and that a young woman who had already been involved in some detective work would have pulled everything together much quicker.

I may take a look at Meyers's planned sequel, but it will have to be a whole lot better for me to read the whole thing.