Long Time No See: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Susan Isaacs (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
In Susan Isaac's Long Time No See, Courtney Logan, former investment analyst, devoted mother, and Long Island housewife, leaves her home on Halloween night for a quick trip to the grocery store. Five months later, her badly decomposed body is found floating in the backyard pool, concealed by the pool cover.

Enter Judith Singer, who helped find a murderer in Isaac's 1978 bestseller, Compromising Positions. Something about the Logan case doesn't make sense to Judith, and she becomes so engrossed in the mystery that she actually knocks on the grieving husband's door and offers to help exonerate him. Long Time No See draws on the best of the light, character-driven mysteries, like those by Janet Evanovich and Mary Daheim. Isaac's first- person heroine is impulsive enough to get herself into trouble, yet thoughtful enough to invite confidences. And her voice is appealingly funny and honest. "Since becoming a widow," she reflects, when faced with a twist in her investigation,

I'd tried hard not to indulge in the lonely person's Happy Hour: talking to oneself. About a year earlier, in the drugstore, I found myself befuddled, dithering between a condom rack and a display of batteries, and was startled when I heard my own loud voice demanding: 'Why am I here?' But now I gave in and had a chat with me.

Although clever and well-written, the novel's real strength lies in its characterization and in Isaac's leisurely unfolding of the implausible dark side of the perky blonde murder victim. This is a welcome outing from a deservedly popular writer. --Regina Marler

From Publishers Weekly
The 20 years between Isaac's bestselling Compromising Positions and this second book to feature amateur sleuth Judith Singer have not affected the author's talent for snappy dialogue and astringent assessments of cant and pretension. In those two decades, Judith has raised two children, lost her husband, achieved a doctorate in history and is teaching (without much satisfaction) at a local college. When her Long Island neighbor, ex-investment banker and perfect mom Courtney Logan, goes missing, Judith become curious; and when Courtney turns up dead, and the husband is accused, she becomes downright obsessed. Greg Logan, it turns out, is the son of notorious gangster Fancy Phil Lowenstein, who arrives on Judith's doorstep with an offer to hire her to help his son. Naturally, her former lover, Lt. Nelson Sharp of the Nassau County Police Department, admonishes Judith to mind her own business, but she pursues her hunch that brilliant and beautiful Courtney seemed to be missing a certain "something" that no one could put a finger on. Judith suspects the key to the crime lies in the victim's character. How right she is! However, the real trouble with Courtney is that she's not very interesting, even at her worst, and Judith's investigation, despite several clever twists, goes on too long, as does the murderer's bizarre confession. But an upbeat ending will satisfy readers, and it suggests that it won't be 20 years before we encounter Judith Singer again. Agent, Owen Laster. (Sept.)Forecast: The major book clubs see big sales for this title: it's a main selection for BOMC and Mystery Guild, and an alternate for Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club. A 10-city author tour and Isaac's witty ripostes on talk shows should whip up interest.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins; 1st edition (September 4, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060195703
• ISBN-13: 978-0060195700
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,101,382 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ms. Isaacs continues the story, twenty years later, September 11, 2001

By	Moe811 (New York USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great for an Isaacs Devotee.... BUT., October 17, 2001

By	D. Rizzo (United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Staccato badinage en masse turned me off..., July 2, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Long Time No See (Mass Market Paperback)

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.