Close Quarters [Mass Market Paperback]

Marissa Piesman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1995

Savvy and a bit neurotic, attorney Nina Fischman is exasperated when the one single man to show interest in her during her vacation on Fire Island turns out to be the prime suspect in a murder. Reprint. NYT.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bronx-reared, Jewish and female, Nina Fischman, a Legal Services for the Elderly attorney, imbues her latest adventure with lively wit and brash humor. Spending a week at a Fire Island summer share with Cheryl Schneiderman, a bossy Housing Court litigator with a Red Queen voice and a "heliotropic tendency," sun-spurning Nina is quickly confronted with murder when house organizer and master seducer Barry Adleman is killed by a poisoned motion-sickness patch. Nina's new love interest, neurotic and vulnerable Jonathan Harris, becomes prime suspect: Barry, a friend since high school, had slept with his wife, played around with his money and lost his Mad magazines. Nina believes that Jonathan, a vulnerable and neurotic Upper East Sider who thinks Jewish women are good in bed and doesn't care about a woman's weight, is a great catch, and she tries to clear him by finding the real murderer. Suspects abound in a household of two envious men and seven spurned women. But it isn't the mystery that entertains as much as the author's iconoclastic humor and accurate take on pushing-40 single New Yorkers. Coauthor of The Yuppie Handbook , Piesman ( Heading Uptown ) punctuates her narrative with the right zip codes and brand names.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Humorous New York attorney Nina Fischman makes her fourth series appearance on Fire Island, where she shares a house with friend Cheryl and others. She becomes suspect when the lothario of the house is murdered, but police favor another man, the new object of Nina's affections.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 10 pages
• Publisher: Dell (July 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 044021162X
• ISBN-13: 978-0440211624
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,145,557 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A funny, witty examination of the singles scene in the 90's., September 29, 1998

By 

David Or Susan Hohl "Sukeybook" (Pinedale, Wyoming) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Close Quarters (Mass Market Paperback)

If your only enjoyment of mysteries is figuring out "who done it," Close Quarters probably isn't for you. But if you enjoy witty characters and an hilarious running commentary on contemporary life among the yuppies, Nina Fischman will delight you. Reading Piesman is like having a marathon phone conversation with your old college roomate, if your college roomate was this funny.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Character deserves 5 stars; plot, 2., November 15, 2002

By 

C. Ebeling "ctlpareader" (PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Close Quarters (Mass Market Paperback)

Toward the end of CLOSE QUARTERS, the heroine, Nina Fischman, observes that she is long on character, short on plot. Therein you have the key to this book. Nina, a housing authority lawyer in Manhattan who is single and nearing forty, is funny and intelligent; especially, she is very witty without indulging in the annoying wisecracks that other mystery writers think are so darn cute and stand in for character. Nina is genuinely nice, not abrasive. She is very real, the product of a working class Jewish family and a state university education. In CLOSE QUARTERS, she engages in a very New York tradition of the communal summer beach rental, this one on Fire Island, a social institution she sends up by merely describing it as it is. It is a setting peopled with types who beg to be murdered.

The plot is about as thin as you can get. There is a single dead body that turns up early and without fanfare, and our heroine really does not get around to sleuthing until four-fifths through the book. Since this book is long on character, we know who did not do it and who has motive and the killer instinct long before the characters get to it. Police procedure is out the window, in fact, so are the police for that matter. We are told, we do not see that people are questioned. Forget forensics; the beach house and murder scene are not cordoned off and the remaining housemates continue their summer activities inhibited only by inclement weather.

If you leave out the murder mystery, you still have a satisfying book. In fact, it might have been more satisfying if there had been no attempt to make it a crime novel; instead, with a little more energy put into the dynamics of the beach rentals, it could have been a wickedly comic novel. Nina is a pleasure to spend time with and the phone conversation with her mother is priceless. This book stands alone quite well; I understand it is part of a series but there is no sense that the author expects you to read the rest of it to get what's going on here.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Easy Reading, September 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Close Quarters (Mass Market Paperback)

This is the first time that I read anything from this author and I found the book to be okay. It was well written but it definitely was not a good mystery. The characters and situations explored were interesting.