Rating: 
Summary: Suspenseful!
Review: My mother gave me her betterd paperback copy of compromising Positions when I was home sick from high school a number of years ago. I loved the way Sue Isaac's captuered the women of Long Island's north shore (AKA Gold Coast). We were both so glad to hear that this much anticipated sequal was being published. I loved being reunited with a now middle aged Judith Singer. This was even better in that the plot was quite suspenseful- I had to stay up to finish it! This is also such a wity novel! Isaac's has a way with words that made me laugh out loud. I have read and loved her other books- Lily White was wonderful!- and this was great!
Rating:
Summary: Susan Isaacs delights us...
Review: one more time. Isaacs is a first rate contemporary novelist. She combines the elements of mystery with strong, contemporary characters, primarily women. Dialogue is crisp and honest, supporting characters fit the lifestyle of the heroine, and the story moves along so fast that you are disappointed you finished it so quickly! All of her heroines are feisty yet vulnerable, with an "everywoman" style, and generally a little "long of tooth". Judith Singer is no exception. Isaacs' first heroine, of "Compromising Positions" fame, is back some 20 years after she stumbled into her first murder and her first love affair. Played by Susan Sarandon(a perfect choice), in the movie of the same name, Judith is even more fascinating once her children are grown, her ambitions in the field of history fulfilled by her Phd., and her memories of Nelson Sharpe, the police lieutenant who won her heart 20 years ago. Judith is urged to investigate a disappearance that looks like a murder by the father-in-law of the missing woman. "Fancy Phil" is a colorful, Jewish, "retired" mob man; good for many laughs and observations in the book. Judith's ability to spot the trend of "coldness" that runs in the life history of the missing woman
leads her to be able to solve the case, while assisting the police and fulfilling her obligation to Phil. Courtney, the missing/murdered heroine, is well drawn as a female who wants it all, and stops at nothing whenever she hits a brick wall, to proceed in another direction, no matter who she hurts. A great
villain and foil for the likeable Judith - another great read by Isaacs, my favorite author in today's fiction. Enjoy, and read all the Isaacs novels, you will find a treasure trove of witty characters and tales!
Rating: 
Summary: Staccato badinage en masse turned me off...
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Another amateur detective
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Another amateur detective
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, simply brilliant
Review: Susan Issacs established herself as a superstar decades ago, deservedly so. Yet LONG TIME NO SEE still may be her best book in years. Her heroine, Judith Singer, whom Issacs' devoted readers first met in COMPROMISING POSITIONS, has aged beautifully. Around this amateur sleuth--Miss Marples if Miss Marples were a Donna Karan-clad, card-carrying member of Weight Watchers living in an affluent New York suburb--Issacs has constructed a mystery. Not to mince words, a brilliant mystery. The tale is both intricate and plausible, and never obvious. Issacs tells her story with insights--brilliant insights-- practically one on each page; as an observer, Issacs possesses the keenest eye. In the course of Judith's grand adventure, Issacs gets inside the heads of menopausal women, revealing truths about middle-aged passion. This author's turns of phrase are, yes, brilliant as well as singular, making for dialogue that's fun. This compelling novel is good to the last page.
Rating:
Summary: Well-crafted plot, witty pageturner
Review: This book took me 25 pages or so to get into, but once I reached a certain point, my interest grew and eventually it was a "couldn't put it down and no, you can't sneak a peak at the ending" book. I really loved Compromising Positions so I was happy to see how life had turned out for the engaging and witty "detective," Judith, who is widowed now and an adjunct history professor. The plot involves life in upper middle class Long Island, and the disappearance of a "mom" who is found months later in the swimming pool (which had been covered all winter). The dead woman's husband, the son of gangster Fancy Phil, is the obvious suspect -- too obvious. Judith offers her services to him to help "research" who really committed the murder; he declines but Fancy Phil accepts her offer. She refuses to take money from Phil but otherwise he has made her an offer she can't refuse. Complicating all of this is her reconnection with a former lover Nelson -- a police detective who is supposed to be investigating Fancy Phil. Judith pursues her investigation into the murdered woman's past -- with Nelson's simultaneous help and opposition. I was genuinely surprised at the twist the plot took but found the "solution" to the mystery believable. Isaacs' mysteries always seem to me to be like watching a good movie -- they are very visual in their descriptions and the characters come alive. Her humorous take on affluent suburban life will be particularly amusing for those who have been there (which I haven't -- but perhaps that makes the sly commentary even funnier for me.)
Rating:
Summary: Well-crafted plot, witty pageturner
Review: This book took me 25 pages or so to get into, but once I reached a certain point, my interest grew and eventually it was a "couldn't put it down and no, you can't sneak a peak at the ending" book. I really loved Compromising Positions so I was happy to see how life had turned out for the engaging and witty "detective," Judith, who is widowed now and an adjunct history professor. The plot involves life in upper middle class Long Island, and the disappearance of a "mom" who is found months later in the swimming pool (which had been covered all winter). The dead woman's husband, the son of gangster Fancy Phil, is the obvious suspect -- too obvious. Judith offers her services to him to help "research" who really committed the murder; he declines but Fancy Phil accepts her offer. She refuses to take money from Phil but otherwise he has made her an offer she can't refuse. Complicating all of this is her reconnection with a former lover Nelson -- a police detective who is supposed to be investigating Fancy Phil. Judith pursues her investigation into the murdered woman's past -- with Nelson's simultaneous help and opposition. I was genuinely surprised at the twist the plot took but found the "solution" to the mystery believable. Isaacs' mysteries always seem to me to be like watching a good movie -- they are very visual in their descriptions and the characters come alive. Her humorous take on affluent suburban life will be particularly amusing for those who have been there (which I haven't -- but perhaps that makes the sly commentary even funnier for me.)
Rating: 
Summary: Waste of trees
Review: This book was simply boring. I stopped reading it after forcing myself to get through about one third of it. I didn't care about the ridiculous plot or any of the characters. Judith Singer (the wisecracking busybody} especially annoyed me. At times it seemed the author was straining to appear witty in her descriptions of people and situations. In reality, anyone like Judith (who barges into homes and somehow gets suspects telling their whole life stories to a total stranger) would be thrown out on her ear. I've read several of the author's previous books, and this one has to be her weakest one yet.
Rating:
Summary: Bad to Worse: Susan Isaacs' "Long Time No See"
Review: This book was touted on the Today Show in an interview with Susan Isaacs by Katie Couric. I thought it must be pretty good, and logged on to Amazon.com. I saw it had a four and one-half star rating and, unfortunately, ordered it. The author has given "contrived" a whole new meaning. The writing is puerile, vulgar and completely unbelievable. Every other sentence is a tiresome attempt at cleverness. For example: "Nancy made a big show of casualness, taking off her sweater and tying it around her waist. It was a peach-color wisp of a thing, made from some suddenly chic fluff I think was shaved off the gonads of Indonesian goats, the must-have knit now that cashmere had become a bore and pashmina a cliche." The story starts out badly and goes downhill rapidly. Boring!
Maybe a 13 year old would enjoy this book, but mature readers probably will not, particularly those of us used to Elizabeth George, Martha Grimes, and Colin Dexter.
| 
