The sights and sounds of Prohibition Era Greenwich Village are at play again in Annette Meyers’ second novel featuring the irrepressible Olivia Brown, poet-cum-sleuth. Olivia succumbs to the lure of a house party in Croton, where friends with children have rented a rustic farmhouse. The weekend promises sparkling conversation, bucolic views and plenty of free-flowing gin. But the convivial atmosphere soon takes a nasty turn. There are whispers and backbiting, and petty squabbles. Olivia can’t shake the feeling that something is terribly wrong here. And then she finds the frozen corpse of the nanny hanging from a tree. Clearly, the nanny 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. 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, sophisticated Yale Club to the smoke-filled lair of a notorious bootlegger and into the menacing clutches of the gang known as the Black Hand.
“The period details of New York’s Greenwich Village in the 1920s are just about perfect. Scenes are as sharp and intoxicating as the bootleg gin that Brown and her cohorts swill almost continuously.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Rich in New York ambiance, heated sensuality, and even a little ghost-story glamour.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“Olivia is adorable. The ’20s do roar with authenticity.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“… the Olivia Brown books are strong on historical atmosphere. Long after I’d forgotten why the nanny was murdered, the image of those silent, gas-lit Village streets lingered.”
—The Washington Post
