Jennifer Otter Bickerdike goes deep into uncovering what made this complex woman tick.

Ms. Bickerdike...digs deeper than any prior biographer. She unearths a unique artistic temperament stunted by the complications of an underground life.

The book does occasionally get bogged down by the sheer number of interviews it tries to squeeze in.

Biographies convince us by being authoritative rather than objective. The musician Richard Witts, whose biography of Nico was published in 1993, was asked by her to write her life. She wanted him to make it like a novel and he did.

Jennifer Otter Bickerdike digs deep into the life of one of the strangest and most unlikely singer-songwriters of our time.

Bickerdike sets out.

Rock historian Bickerdike offers an impressive corrective to the 'one-sided narrative... perpetuated about Nico.