Oddly, the unknown victim looks amazingly like Oliver, and when she receives an anonymous gift of shoes identical to the victim s, she is concerned enough to take action. Oliver asks Harry, to investigate and he feels that her natural curiosity will be a great help to him in return. Oliver begins investigating but continues her impetuous lifestyle of drinking, smoking, and free love, although Harry has warned her to be more careful. When Harry is beaten severely while following Oliver home from a party, he concludes the murderer is one of her friends, and he obtains bodyguards for her from his picturesque friends in the Hudson Dusters gang. The setting in Free Love is unusual, well researched, and compelling.
Few mysteries take place in the twenties, and Greenwich Village is fascinating and gripping.
Smoking and drinking gin are so commonplace that they permeate the whole story with their scent and taste. The free-spirited thinking, the plethora of writers, artists, and actors present a youthful, daring, and dangerously adventurous picture of the times. The murder construct is original and takes some surprising twists. Yet neither Harry s nor Oliver s investigative abilities live up to the rank of amateur detective or amateur sleuth. The murderer s identity is presented clearly long before the end of the book, yet the final confrontation comes as a complete surprise to both of them.