Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner
Free Love
Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Annette Meyers
Class/Genre: Mystery Amateur Sleuth Historical
Series: Smith and Wetzon # 8
Mysterious, Oct 1999, $23.95, 256 pp.
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.
Harriet Klausner
Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner
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