Murder Me Now

Starred review from January 1, 2001
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.

November 1, 2000
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 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 15, 2000
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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)