Customer Reviews

LONG TIME NO SEE

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Judith Singer, housewife/detective is now twenty years older. Her husband, the egocentric Bob has been dead for two years, a half day after running the NY marathon in just over 4 hrs. She is teaching history at a small catholic college and seems depressed bored and lonely. Then, just like twenty years ago, a headline catches her eye. A woman in her community of Shorehaven has disappeared without a trace. She finds it interesting, but does nothing until a body is found in the woman's swimming pool months later. Presumably, the body is that of Courtney Logan. Judith rather impulsively offers her services as a researcher to the grieving husband, and is rebuffed at the door. Shortly thereafter, his father, organized crime figure, Fancy Phil Lowenstein, shows up in her garage and asks for her help in solving the crime. This brings Nelson Sharpe, now in Special Investigations, back into her life and her investigation.

All of the old characters from Compromising Positions are back, twenty years older. I was interested to find out how they all changed. The mystery in this book was much better than the last, and that one was very good. It was an excellent Long Island suburban mystery.

First, let me say that After All These Years and Shining Through, two books by this author, are two of my favorite books in life... very high praise from an English teacher and natural lifelong voracious reader.

While this sequel to Compromising Positions does somewhat satiate my desire for witty and vibrant Isaacs writing, it leaves me wistful. With this book, Isaccs does her ribald, creative, liberal thing... but like heroine Judith Singer, she's now somewhat predictably paced, a little too readily familiar, and -- dare I say it? -- just a touch YAWN.

Is this author running out of ideas? Must she resort to the vague glimmers of already-told anecdotes and slightly faded allusions? I could almost say Judith's lines with her in this reprise of Compromising Positions... and I figured out the who-done-it well before the end (read After All These Years if you want an amazingly witty murder mystery by this woman... it's a much better illustration of what she can do!).

Don't get me wrong, the mystery itself is terrific, with a powerful punch at the end, when the evil villain emerges. So why does it fail to totally satisfy? I wish the author had saved this idea for a stimulating NEW heroine... someone not quite so liberal, not quite so Semitic, not quite so like all her other heroines. Someone like... Cass, in After All These Years. She's highly intelligent, she's well educated, she's affluent, she's conservative, she's black, she's DIFFERENT.

Oh, and with Nelson, the heroine's adulterous partner in days gone by, expect little of their initial forbidden lustful thrill... Nelson is older, too. It's nice that these two post-menopausal, pre-Medicare folks gained their long-awaited closure, but then I doubt that Judith would either need or much benefit from a twice married, thrice fathered cop-boyfriend, despite Isaacs's efforts to establish Judith's loneliness as a widow and emptiness with "only" her Ph.D. and two grown, successful children.

Most people would have it so good.

Anyway, it's a good -- if not totally fulfilling -- read if you're a devoted Isaacs fan... if you're not yet, don't let this book try to turn you on to her. But read After All These Years. Read Shining Through. Don't watch the movie! Seriously! You'll LOVE them.

Overwritten, the story gets lost in the irritating machine gun
jokey-ness that passes as "wit." Don't they edit these
so-called "best-selling" writers? I really wanted to get into
a juicy story...stuck it out for a few chapters...but was utterly defeated by the neverending "shtick." Sometimes it works.
Here it does not. The author is carried away with her
"style," which is, basically, just a smartass stand-up
routine which, unfortunately, does not stand up. Yawn.

In this sequel to "Compromising Positions," Judith Singer is once more looking into a murder in her small suburban Long Island town. Around page 200 she complains frustratedly that she's spinning her wheels, that the case is going nowhere. I could relate. "When is something going to happen, here?" I was thinking. Finally Judith comes across some information that turns things around, and from then on the book flies by fairly quickly. (With a great jolt of a twist on page 298!) But, honestly, the first 200 pages are trying, especially when you realize (I hope I'm not giving away too much here) that they have NOTHING to do with the outcome of the mystery. Still, the 3 stars are for Isaacs deft writing, her wry one-liners. I won't say "Long Time No See" is a waste of time, but if there's a Number Three, I won't be buying the hard cover. That's what libraries are for, you know?

I've got a soft spot for Susan Isaacs and her writing: Since reading "Compromising positions" & "Almost paradise", years ago, I've become a fan, & have ordered everything coming out by her, months before it's actually in the bookstores. Some of her books I've loved, others I've merely liked. Never was there a book by Susan Isaacs that I've hated or been bored with. Even "Red white & blue", her weakest work to date, was finished in a matter of hours.

"Long time no see" could be called a sequel, if we were to stretch the meaning of the word "sequel". In it, Judith Singer, housewife & recent widow, is slowly getting bored by single life & work at the local college. 20 years ago, she had helped solve a murder, by getting the detective itch. She gets the urge again, when learning about Courtney Logan's mysterious disappearance. She even, fearlessly, volunteers to help solve the mystery, working together with Courtney's father in law, gangster Phil Lowenstein.

Part of the fun of S.Isaac's books is the terrific humour & the one-liners. Most of her heroines (and Judith more so than others) are wittier, more brave versions of everyday women. The actual mystery in this book is solved piece by piece, conversation by conversation, & we watch as, incredibly, Judith gets to the end of it. While she does this, she manages to have a reunion with her flame from long ago, Nelson Sharpe, who we last met in "Compromising Positions". 20 years may have passed, but (& this is part of Ms.Isaac's talent) it somehow seems natural for Judith & Nelson to get back together. Maybe, in the end, that's why I love Susan Isaacs: she takes everyday people, puts them into not-everyday situtations, and lets things happen.

Long Time No See is a witty murder mystery narrated by Judith Singer, who we first met in Compromising Positions. I read that one ages ago, and I remember liking it a bit more than Long Time No See. LTNS, while funny, has a bit of a pacing problem. It starts off fairly well, but then, as soon as Judith gets involved in solving the murder mystery, the story drags. She interviews what seemed to be countless people who could tell her nothing. And then, in a whirlwind, the story is wrapped up. Not bad, just not great either.

Some years ago an acquaintance related his experience digging for placer gold on a mining claim. He had to remove tons of material to find the seam of gold bearing gravel. The author of this novel has loaded it with an infinite amount of material about this, that, and the other thing; degressions into the main character's personal life; flashbacks to incidents in a previous novel; and comments on older men. Somewhere, buried under all that, is a plot. If you are interested in the details of life in Yuppyville, you might like the novel.

The plot includes missing people, missing money, insider trading, false identities, computer data searches, etc. The action starts out somewhat slowly, but the pace picks up as the story progresses. I fast-forwarded through the initial chapters, skipping most of one chapter. The plot was a little transparent as I had the guilty party identified a quarter of the way through the novel. Various elements of the plot have been used before by other authors.

Overall, the novel is about average. It is something to read on a rainy day. Based on content, I would rate the novel at the PG-13 level.

This tale never really takes off. If you're looking for something to help you sleep at night, this book is it! I kept waiting for it to get better because I have enjoyed Ms.Isaacs previous works, but this one left me snoozing. Can't believe all these "friends and acquaintances" of the deceased would agree to meet and entertain in their homes a complete stranger who is interested in who murdered rich, little, perfect Courtney Logan. The storyline is as inane as the characters. Better luck next time, Susan.

This is the first Susan Isaacs book I have read. I listened to the abridged audio CD version of the book. Ms. Isaacs is the narrator herself. It is terrible. I am unable to concentrate on the story - I am so distracted by her voice. She tries to do "accents" of some of the characters - all the accents turn out to be caricatures - of southern accents, of Eastern European, of Brooklyn, etc. It is almost unlistenable. Do yourself a favor, Ms. Isaacs - save the narration for the professionals!

I always want to finish reading a book once I start but I don't know if I can make it with this one - there is just one idiot comment after another that is supposed to be funny. Maybe you are supposed to be over the age of 50 to get the humor. The story line is slow and just goes downhill as I continue to read. I am 3/4 of the way through and could really care less "whodunnit".