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.


From Library Journal
Guess who's back? Judith Singer of Isaacs's best-selling Compromising Positions. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Judith Singer can carry a torch almost as long as the Statue of Liberty. After twenty-odd years, Singer is back in town and still has the hots for her old flame, Police Captain Nelson Sharpe. Between teaching history and qvetching about being overweight, Judith makes insightful, often hilarious comments about suburban life. She also takes on the murder investigation of Courtney Logan at the request of Courtney's father-in-law, crime figure Fancy Phil Lowenstein. Isaacs is in her best form with this mystery, placing Judith directly in harm's way and, of course, into Nelson's path. Cristine McMurdo-Wallis's performance is dead-on. Her pleasantly husky voice brings life to each character, and she is completely believable in every guise. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
This long-awaited sequel to the best-selling comic mystery Compromising Positions (1978) reintroduces feisty Long Islander Judith Singer. In the more-than-20 years since we've seen her, she's acquired a doctorate in history and lost her husband to a heart attack, but she's held on to the zeal for investigating murders that landed her in so much trouble in her first adventure. Judith has been minding her own business for a long time, but when ostensibly perfect soccer mom Courtney Logan turns up dead in a backyard swimming pool, Judith can't resist getting involved. Courtney's husband, Greg, is the prime suspect, but Judith doesn't believe he did it, and neither does Greg's father, the Tony Sopranoesque gangster Fancy Phil Lowenstein. He hires Judith to clear Greg's name, and she goes about the job armed with female intuition, charm, and an amazing ability to lie through her teeth. She also gets to spar with Nelson Sharpe, a local police detective and former lover whom Judith hasn't seen in 20 years. A gripping plot with skillfully rendered secondary characters and plenty of tart humor make this sequel every bit as entertaining as its predecessor. Recommend it to Evanovich fans: Judith Singer is a 20-year-older version of Stephanie Plum. Carrie Bissey
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Kirkus *Starred Review*
"Isaacs does it again: skewering the pretensions of upscale suburbanites and in a tender, funny romance."


New York Time Book Review
“A big, fat, happy feast of a book…[She] is both funny and piercing, a highly satisfying combination.”


Library Journal
"LONG TIME NO SEE will delight her many readers."


The Boston Globe
"Jam-packed with wry observations and Judith's entertaining foibles, [LONG TIME NO SEE] is good fun."


People on Isaac's previous work
“Murder, sex, and humor make for a wickedly entertaining combination.”


People Magazine
"Hilarious satire of suburbia"


Booklist
A gripping plot and plenty of tart humor make this sequel every bit as entertaining as its predecessor.


New York Times Book Review on RED WHITE AND BLUE
“A big, fat, happy feast of a book…[Isaacs’] most confident and appealing.”


Entertainment Weekly on Isaac's previous work
“Isaacs delivers witty, wicked satire from begining to end.”


Rocky Mountain News
“It’s nice to take refuge in a mystery that entertains rather than chills you to the bone.”


Book Description
"On an unseasonably warm Halloween night, while I was reading a snappy treatise on Wendell Wilkie's support of FDR's war policies and handing out the occasional bag of M&M's to a trick-or-treater, the fair-haired and dimpled Courtney Logan, age thirty-four, magna cum laude graduate of Princeton, erstwhile investment banker at Patton Giddings, wife of darkly handsome Greg, mother of five-year-old Travis, canner of spiced pears, collector of vintage petit point, and ex-president of citizens for a more beautiful Shorehaven vanished from long island into thin air."Judith Singer is back! After twenty years Susan Isaacs brings us back the heroine from Compromising Positions, her first and most beloved novel and returns to a great suspense story set in suburbia. Judith's life has changed. She now has her doctorate in history. Her workaday hours are spent at St. Elizabeth's College, mostly squandered in history department shriek-fests. She is also a widow. Her husband Bob died one half-day after triumphantly finishing the New York City Marathon in four hours and twelve minutes. And although twenty years have passed without seeing him, she still cannot get her former lover, Nelson Sharpe of the Nassau County Police Department, out of her system. With Courtney Logan's dramatic disappearance, all eyes turn instantly toward her husband, Greg Logan, son of Long Island mobster Philip "Fancy Phil" Lowenstein. But since there is no body, there is no arrest. Then, in the less-than-merry month of May, Judith comes home from work, turns on the radio, and hears the Logans' pool man telling a reporter that he opened the pool and found . . . a raccoon? Not quite. "I see, you know, it's a body! Jeez. Believe it or not, I'm still shaking." The woman in the pool turns out to be Courtney, and now it's officially homicide. And Judith comes alive! She offers her services to the police's chief suspect, Greg Logan, but he shows her the door, thinking her just another neighborhood nut. But his father isn't so sure: Fancy Phil may have other plans for her. Long Time No See is Susan Isaacs at her wickedly observant best. With razor-sharp wit and an irresistible mystery, she brings us back in touch with an engaging, endearing and irreverent heroine we haven't seen in far too long.


About the Author
Susan Isaacs is the author of eight novels including Red, White & Blue, Lily White, After All These Years, Compromising Positions, and Shining Through and one non-fiction title Brave Dames And Wimpettes: What Women Are Really Doing on Page and Screen. She lives on Long Island with her husband.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
In 1978, Susan Isaacs made a memorable debut with Compromising Positions, a wickedly funny novel that functioned both as a murder mystery and a sharply observed comedy of manners. That debut novel introduced Judith Singer, a discontented 35-year-old housewife whose love of mysteries, both fictional and real, leads her to investigate the unsolved murder of a philandering Long Island periodontist.

Long Time No See is Judith's long-overdue return engagement, and I'm pleased to report that she's as likable, acerbic, and insatiably curious as ever.

A great deal has changed in Judith's life since her initial appearance. Her husband is dead, felled by a heart attack after successfully completing the New York City Marathon. Her children have grown and lead independent lives. And she herself now teaches history at a college in neighboring Queens. Her life is quiet, orderly, and essentially unfulfilled. But all this changes when a prominent Shorehaven neighbor disappears, setting the stage for Judith's second encounter with murder and mayhem on Long Island.

The story begins when Courtney Logan -- a wealthy housewife and former investment banker -- walks out of her house on Halloween night and vanishes without a trace. By the time Courtney's body surfaces, several months later, Judith has developed an obsessive fascination with the case and proceeds to launch an investigation of her own, leading her into the world of organized crime -- and some previously unsuspected corners of Courtney Logan's life. It also leads to a romantic reencounter with the lover she renounced more than two decades before: Nassau County homicide investigator Nelson Sharpe.

The central mystery is satisfying and cleverly constructed, but -- as in Compromising Positions -- the real heart of the novel is Judith Singer herself. Judith's voice -- filled with unsentimental reflections on her own less-than-perfect history and with trenchant observations on the people, places, and events that surround her -- is witty, intelligent, and consistently engaging, and gives this novel its distinctive, idiosyncratic flavor.

It's wonderful to have Judith back -- "long time no see," indeed -- and I hope to encounter her again before another 20 years have gone by. (Bill Sheehan)

ANNOTATION

With Courtney Logan's dramatic disappearance, all eyes turn instantly toward her husband, Greg Logan, son of Long Island mobster Philip "Fancy Phil" Lowenstein. But since there is no body, there is no arrest. Then, in the less-than-merry month of May, Judith comes home from work, turns on the radio, and hears the Logans' pool man telling a reporter that he opened the pool and found ... a raccoon? Not quite...

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Judith Singer is back! After twenty years Susan Isaacs reintroduces us to the heroine of Compromising Positions, her first novel, and returns to a suspense story set in suburbia." "Judith's life has changed. She now has her doctorate in history. Her workaday hours are spent at St. Elizabeth's College, mostly squandered in history department shriek-fests. She is also a widow. Her husband, Bob, died one-half day after triumphantly finishing the New York City Marathon in four hours and twelve minutes. And although twenty years have passed without her seeing Nelson Sharpe of the Nassau County Police Department, Judith still cannot get her former lover out of her system." With Courtney Logan's dramatic disappearance, all eyes turn instantly to her husband, Greg Logan, son of Long Island mobster Philip "Fancy Phil" Lowenstein. But since there is no body, there is no arrest. Then, in the less-than-merry month of May, Judith comes home from work, turns on the radio, and hears the Logans' pool man telling a reporter that he opened the pool and found...a raccoon? Not quite: "...I see, you know, it's...a body! Jeez. Believe it or not, I'm still shaking." The woman in the pool turns out to be Courtney, and now it's officially homicide. And Judith comes alive! She offers her services to the police chief's suspect, Greg Logan, but he shows her the door, thinking her just another neighborhood nut. His father, however, isn't so sure: Fancy Phil may have other plans for her.

FROM THE CRITICS

Washington Post Book World

Intimate, irreverent and revealing. Girl talk at its best.

People Magazine

Hilarious satire of suburbia.

Boston Globe

Jam-packed with wry observations and Judith's entertaining foibles, [LONG TIME NO SEE] is good fun.

Rocky Mountain News

It's nice to take refuge in a mystery that entertains rather than chills you to the bone.

New York Time Book Review