Past Perfect: A Novel [Abridged, Audiobook, CD] [Audio CD]

Susan Isaacs (Author), Randye Kaye (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 28, 2008

In Past Perfect, Susan Isaacs gives us one of her most glorious characters ever: bright, buoyant, and borderline luscious Katie Schottland. Katie seems to have the ideal life: a great husband, a precocious and winning ten-year-old son, and a dream job - writer for the long-running TV series Spy Guys. But all is not as splendid as it should be because writing about the espionage business isn’t nearly as satisfying as working in it. Fifteen years earlier, Katie was in the CIA. She loved her job (to say nothing of her boss, the mysterious Benton Mattingly). Yet just as she was sensing she was in line for a promotion, she was fired - escorted off the premises by two extremely hulking security types. Why? No one would tell her: when you’re expelled from the Agency, warm friends immediately become icy ex-colleagues who won’t risk their security clearances by talking to you. Until that day, Katie was where she wanted to be. Coming from a family of Manhattan superachievers, she too had a job she not only adored but a job that made her, in the family tradition, a Someone. Fifteen years later, Katie is still stuck on her firing. Was she set up? Or did she make some terrible mistake that cost lives? She believes that if she could discover why they threw her out, she might be at peace. On the day she’s rushing to get her son off to summer camp, Katie gets a surprise call from former Agency colleague Lisa Golding. “A matter of national importance,” says Lisa, who promises to reveal the truth about the firing - if Katie will help her. Lisa was never very good at truth-telling, though she swears she’s changed her ways. Katie agrees to speak with her, but before she can, Lisa vanishes. Maturity and common sense should keep Katie in the bright, normal world of her present life, away from the dark intrigues of the past. But she needs to know. As she takes just a few steps to find out, one ex-spy who might have the answers dies under suspicious circumstances. Another former agent is murdered. Could it be there’s a list? If so, is Katie now on it? And who will be the next to go?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Isaacs's 11th novel has fewer sparks flying than nets dragging, but most fans won't mind a bit, given the amount of outside-the-bedroom adventure. Despite reinventing herself as the author of the novel Spy Guys and the creator of the resultant TV show, Katie Schottland remains wounded by her still-unexplained firing from the CIA, where she wrote intelligence briefs as the Cold War ended, 13 years earlier. When she gets a distress call from an old co-worker, Lisa Golding, who subsequently disappears, Katie plunges back into the notes she smuggled out of the office. She seeks help from an old flame and another ex-agent (now a log-cabin recluse) who helps her trace three of Lisa's former charges at the CIA, East German asylum seekers transported to America and given new names. When two of them turn up dead within weeks of each other, Katie decides to give chase to locate the third before the woman becomes the next casualty. And she still hopes she'll coerce her ex-employer to give up the truth about her termination. The operations stuff is well-done throughout. Katie's relationship with her sweet vet husband adds little, but TV show–based scenes are diverting, and her fixation on her last job is sharply funny and true-to-life. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

By turns sassy and serious, Isaacs's best-selling novels (including Any Place I Hang My Hat, 2004) offer variations on a theme: "What's a nice Jewish girl doing in a predicament like this?" In the opening pages of her latest offering, former CIA analyst Katie Schottland receives a call from Lisa Golding, an old colleague who desperately needs her help. Katie, who was inexplicably fired from the agency some 15 years before, has since turned her experiences to profit, penning a successful cable-TV show based on her novel, Spy Games. But she remains clueless about the circumstances surrounding her termination. Lisa, it seems, knows all the devastating details and offers to offer them up in exchange for Katie's assistance. But can Katie, now ensconced in upper Manhattan, with a nice (if somewhat milquetoasty) husband and a 10-year-old son, leave behind her safe, comfortable life long enough to learn the truth? Past Perfect has cliched prose and a plot that pushes the limits of believability (skeptical readers may wonder how the scattered Katie ever got a CIA post in the first place). But Isaacs, veteran novelist and screenwriter with a sterling track record, can be counted on to ring cash registers, and if this isn't her best effort, it does offer a cast of reasonably engaging characters headed by Katie, a woman determined--once and for all--to make peace with her past. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio on CD Value Priced; Abridged edition (January 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1423338944
• ISBN-13: 978-1423338949
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 7 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,290,295 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

First, here's what the critics say::

AFiction done well and done with a difference...A sophisticated storyteller, with a wry view of the world.@ - Washington Post


AJane Austen brought up to date...Highly amusing.@ - Atlantic Monthly


ASusan Isaacs is a witty, wry observer of the contemporary scene.@ - New York Times Book Review

ASardonic humor and dead-on commentary.@ - Houston Chronicle


ASusan Isaacs knows the art of dialogue the way J.S. Bach knew the art of the fugue.@ - Seattle Times


Blockbuster writers tend to be no more than terrific storytellers. Susan Isaacs=s talents go far beyond that. She is a witty, insightful, and elegant writer.@ - Mademoiselle

AI can think of no other novelist--popular or highbrow--who consistently celebrates female gutsiness, brains and sexuality. She=s Jane Austen with a schmear.@ Maureen Corrigan- National Public Radio Fresh Air


AWho....., is our best popular novelist? The nominee for this quarter is Susan Isaacs....[She] is a comic realist, an astute chronicler of contemporary life in the tradition of....Anthony Trollope.@ - Sun Sentinel



Susan's biography

Susan Isaacs, novelist, essayist and screenwriter, was born in Brooklyn and educated at Queens College. She worked as an editorial assistant at Seventeen magazine writing everything from book reviews to advice to the lovelorn. In 1968, Susan married Elkan Abramowitz, then a federal prosecutor. She became a senior editor but left Seventeen in 1970 to stay home with her newborn son, Andrew. Three years later, she gave birth to Elizabeth. During this time she freelanced, writing political speeches as well as magazine articles.

In the mid-seventies, Susan got the urge to write a novel. A year later she began Compromising Positions, a whodunit set on suburban Long Island. It was published in. Her second novel, Close Relations, a love story set against a background of ethnic, sexual and New York Democratic politics (thus a comedy), was published in. Her third, Almost Paradise, was published in 1984. All of Susan's novels have been New York Times bestsellers. Her fiction has been translated into thirty languages.

In 1985, she wrote the screenplay for Paramount's Compromising Positions, which starred Susan Sarandon and Raul Julia. She also wrote and co-produced Disney's Hello Again. The 1987 comedy starred Shelley Long and Gabriel Byrne.

Her fourth novel, Shining Through, set during World War II, was published in 1988. The film adaptation starred Michael Douglas and Melanie Griffith. Then came Magic Hour January 1991, After All These Years in 1993. Lily White in 1996 and Red, White and Blue in 1998. In 1999, Susan came out with her first work of nonfiction, Brave Dames and Wimpettes: What Women Are Really Doing on Page and Screen. During 2000, she wrote a series of columns on the presidential campaign for Newsday. Long Time No See, a sequel to Compromising Positions, came out in September 2001. Anyplace I Hang My Hat, was published in 2004. Past Perfect is her eleventh novel.

Susan Isaacs is a recipient of the Writers for Writers Award and the John Steinbeck Award. She serves as chairman of the board of Poets & Writers and is a past president of Mystery Writers of America. She is also a member of the National Book Critics Circle, The Creative Coalition, PEN, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the International Association of Crime Writers, and the Adams Round Table. Besides writing innumerable book reviews, Susan has also written about politics, film and First Amendment issues. She lives on Long Island with her husband.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Yawn!!!, March 4, 2007

By 

N. Gargano "nokegchris" (Waynesville NC and Bradenton, Fl) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Past Perfect: A Novel (Hardcover)

I am a huge Susan Isaacs fan, and although I have liked some of her books better than others, I have never read one of hers, well, tried to read one of hers, that had bored me to tears. I was half way through the book, put it down, and tried to pick it back up to finish. Oy vey, could not do it. This story is so boring, and the characters are so boring, I just can't believe this is Susan Isaacs. I wonder if she was busy and someone else wrote it for her!!! Sorry Ms. Isaacs, I'll try again next book.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not One of Isaac's Best, February 22, 2007

By 

C. Schaefer (Stafford Springs, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Past Perfect: A Novel (Hardcover)

I am sooooo struggling to finish this book. It just drags on and on. The plot is thin. There is a dearth of action. But what really makes it bad for me is how very very cutsie the lead character, Katie, is. Bleah. I expected better from Isaacs. I'm not sure I'll finish it.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Real Disappointment, February 18, 2007

By 

CT Book Lover (Wilton, CT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Past Perfect: A Novel (Hardcover)

I used to love Susan Isaacs' books -- "Shining Through" being one of my all-time favorite books. Unfortunately, this books continues the trend of her more recent books: namely, short on plot, long on the cutesy cleverness of our heroine, in this case Katie Schottland. Katie has it all -- adorable son, handsome, caring husband, doting parents, great job, financial success. But she just can't seem to get over the only bad thing that ever happened in her charmed life: her firing from the CIA 15 years ago. "Past Perfect" gives us 337 pages of explanation of why and how that happened, blended in with a less than enthralling back story of CIA dealings at the time of the fall of East Germany in 1990. Excuse me while I snore.