Olivia Brown (Oliver to her friends)--bohemian poet, advocate of women's rights and free love, and connoisseur of bootleg gin--has the unpleasant habit of stumbling across dead bodies. When she finds Fordy and Kate Vaudes' demure nanny, Adelle, hanging from a tree during a country house weekend, Olivia is sure suicide is the wrong assumption. After all, why would Adelle hang herself with a man's leather belt?

Back in Greenwich Village, Oliver and her housemate, private detective Harry Melville, plunge into an investigation that takes them from Oliver's gently gin- soaked literary world to an array of nefarious dens of iniquity. Adelle, it turns out, was Adeline Zimmerman, former Pinkerton detective; Daisy, one of the guests at that country weekend, was Adeline's sister; and both Zimmerman women were having an affair with Lester Nolan, the corrupt cop ("a wax model of a hero in human clothing") who's doing the commissioner a favor by looking into the murder. What (or whom) was Adeline investigating? What has caused the sudden tension between Fordy and Kate? And who, really, is Celia, the beautiful photographer who drifts in and out of Oliver's life like a bewitching muse?

As Olivia tries to trace a path through Village society (where everyone knows everyone else, and serial alliances and misalliances are so common that "It was like putting a light to a single match in a row of matches and watching one catch fire, then another, and another until the whole parcel was ablaze"), she finds herself rubbing elbows with an assortment of picturesque characters, from mobsters to authors. One of these charming individuals is a deadly threat--but which?

The novel is refreshingly free of glaring anachronisms, and author Annette Meyers has obviously done her research on Village literary life in the '20s. But Meyers is no Fitzgerald, nor even a Michael Cunningham. Though the novel preens itself a trifle ostentatiously on its periodicity, tending toward heavy-handed references to the Great War, it fails to capture the poignantly fragile glamour of the era, with its heady whirlwind of flappers, expatriate authors, and jazz and its haunting legacy of trench warfare, poison gas, and dislocated modernity. As long as it doesn't try too hard, however, the Olivia Brown series is a perfectly pleasant diversion, as amusing as--and less rigorous than--the Charleston. --Kelly Flynn


From Publishers Weekly
The period details of New York's Greenwich Village in 1920 are just about perfect in Meyers's second book (after 1999's Free Love) about bohemian poet Olivia Brown. Scenes studded with real people like writer/editor Edmund "Bunny" Wilson and gangster Monk Eastman are as sharp and intoxicating as the bootleg gin that Brown and her cohorts swill almost continuously. Time and place leap to life as we move through a wintry landscape of rehearsals at the Provincetown Playhouse, drunken house parties in Croton, intrigue at the Yale Club and endless gatherings at famous restaurants like Chumley's. Brown, who narrates, is a fascinating character, managing to produce excellent poetry reminiscent of Edna St. Vincent Millay while drinking and smoking up a storm, attracting the sexual advances of both sexes (not for nothing is she called "Oliver" by her friends) and putting herself in harm's way by helping her downstairs neighbor, PI Harry Melville, investigate crimes. And if the crime hereDthe murder of a wealthy family's young nanny, who might have once been a Pinkerton agent with possible connections to the Secret Service and the Black HandDturns out to be the least interesting part of the book, that seems a small price to pay for being allowed into the author's elegant historical recreation. Agent, Stuart Krichevsky. Mystery Guild featured alternate. (Jan.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Olivia Brown revels in her life in Greenwich Village of the 1920s. She's a published poet, she's usually in love, and Prohibition hasn't slowed the flow of booze. A holiday weekend in Croton with the artists and writers of her circle ends horribly, though, when the family nanny is found frozen and hanging from a tree. The nanny is clearly not who she seemed: she turns out to have been a Pinkerton and to have a snaky series of ties to Olivia's circle. The plot races through a holiday season with verve: gangsters, the Irish street gang called the Hudson Dusters, and the Black Hand's Lupo the Wolf all figure prominently. The real interest here, though, lies in Olivia herself--a small woman who drinks too much and eats too little, whose friends call her Oliver, and whose passions ebb and flare with an omnivorous sexuality. Her persona and her poetry are rather fine Edna St. Vincent Millay pastiches; Mattie, her housekeeper, and Harry, the stalwart and mysterious P.I. downstairs in her Bedford Street brownstone, add humanity to her boozing and composing. Rich in New York ambience, heated sensuality, and even a little ghost-story glamour. GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Happily ensconced in her Bedford Street brownstone, Olivia Brown is having the time of her life: writing sonnets and downing martinis, making conquests and making love. Indeed, she doubts that anything could tempt her away from her Village home until she succumbs to the lure of a house party in Croton that promises sparkling conversation, bucolic views, and plenty of free-flowing gin." "Yet Olivia has barely arrived at the rustic farmhouse of Fordy and Kate Vaude, when the convivial atmosphere takes a decidedly nasty turn. Between the petty squabbles and the jarring silences, the backbiting and the broad hints of marital discord, Olivia can't shake the feeling that something is terribly wrong here. And then she finds the frozen corpse of the Vaudes' nanny, hanging from a tree." "Clearly, the young woman was murdered, and yet as Olivia and her friend, private investigator Harry Melville, join forces to learn why and by whom, they uncover more questions than answers. And when it turns out that the mysterious nanny was not whom she pretended to be, Olivia finds herself rushing headlong into a mystery that will take her from the swank and sophisticated Yale Club to the smoke-filled lair of a bootlegger and into the menacing clutches of the gang known as the Black Hand." "The deeper Olivia probes, the darker the threats. Surrounded by bold-faced danger and ominous smiles, she can't help but wonder: Is the murderer one of the thugs - or one of her friends?"--BOOK JACKET.

SYNOPSIS

Olivia Brown is having the time of her life. A party in Croton promises still more fun. But when she arrives at the rustic farmhouse of Fordy and Kate Vaude, she finds their nanny hanging from a tree. The deeper Olivia probes, the darker the threats. Is the murderer a thug -- or one of her friends?

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

The period details of New York's Greenwich Village in 1920 are just about perfect in Meyers's second book (after 1999's Free Love) about bohemian poet Olivia Brown. Scenes studded with real people like writer/editor Edmund "Bunny" Wilson and gangster Monk Eastman are as sharp and intoxicating as the bootleg gin that Brown and her cohorts swill almost continuously. Time and place leap to life as we move through a wintry landscape of rehearsals at the Provincetown Playhouse, drunken house parties in Croton, intrigue at the Yale Club and endless gatherings at famous restaurants like Chumley's. Brown, who narrates, is a fascinating character, managing to produce excellent poetry reminiscent of Edna St. Vincent Millay while drinking and smoking up a storm, attracting the sexual advances of both sexes (not for nothing is she called "Oliver" by her friends) and putting herself in harm's way by helping her downstairs neighbor, PI Harry Melville, investigate crimes. And if the crime here--the murder of a wealthy family's young nanny, who might have once been a Pinkerton agent with possible connections to the Secret Service and the Black Hand--turns out to be the least interesting part of the book, that seems a small price to pay for being allowed into the author's elegant historical recreation. Agent, Stuart Krichevsky. Mystery Guild featured alternate. (Jan.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Following her debut in Free Love (Mysterious, 1999), acclaimed poet and amateur detective Olivia Brown makes a return appearance. This time Olivia can't resist investigating the murder of a woman at her friends' country retreat. What was the victim's real identity? Which of Olivia's bohemian friends might be responsible for the terrible crime? Our intrepid heroine stays on the case, even when she is threatened by street gangs and distracted by an amorous gangster. Along with the help of Harry, her downstairs tenant, Olivia just might solve the mystery in time for martinis at the local speakeasy. Meyers carefully evokes a 1920s Greenwich Village teeming with illegal alcohol, torrid affairs, and artistic creativity. Samples of Olivia's poetry are scattered throughout, giving the story an extra richness. Recommended for large public libraries.--Laurel Bliss, Yale Univ. Lib. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Madcap Greenwich Village poet Olivia Brown ( Nolan, William F. DOWN THE LONG NIGHT Five Star/Macmillan (220 pp.) Nov. 2000