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