Long Time No See

by Susan Isaacs Narrated by Cristine McMurdo-Wallis

Overview

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 also is 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 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.

Editorial Reviews

bn.com review

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)

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: NassauCounty 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)

Washington Post Book World

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

New York Time Book Review

A big, fat, happy feast of a book...[She] is both funny and piercing, a highly satisfying combination.

Boston Globe

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

People Magazine

Hilarious satire of suburbia.

Rocky Mountain News

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

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 wittyripostes on talk shows should whip up interest. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Slim, blond, and missing since Halloween, Courtney Logan had been a Wall Street whiz until she married Greg and became the stay-at-home mom of two adorable children. Now the daffodils are up and the pool man has just found her floating corpse. As Judith Singer, Isaacs's irresistible heroine (Compromising Positions), might say: what gives? The obvious suspect: Courtney's husband Greg, the son of a beefy, belligerent Jewish gangster, Fancy Phil Lowenstein, who knows all about getting rid of "problems." Or was it Steffi, the mousy au pair? Recently widowed Judith has plenty of time on her hands and delves in. She decides to investigate on her own, posing (improbably) as an amateur historian, but is soon hired by Fancy Phil to dig up information for him too. (He don't want to talk to no cops, but he knows his son didn't kill no wife.) There was some funny business about money: Courtney took thousands out of a joint account to put into her business, StarBaby, a videotaping service for affluent tykes with busy parents who want to cherish every childhood moment even if they aren't around to witness it firsthand. But Greg coulda used that dough for his business, Phil points out. Judith listens to it all and proceeds to interview everyone who knew Courtney, finding that no one seemed to really know her at all. Judith's ex-lover, Nelson, formerly a cop and now a detective, warns her to stay away from Phil and leave the sleuthing to the pros, but does Judith listen? Of course not. They rekindle their romance in awkward, very amusing fits and starts, as Judith tracks down evidence of insider trading scams, offshore bank accounts, and switched identities . . . and finds the killerat last. Isaacs does it again: skewering the pretensions of upscale suburbanites and in a tender, funny romance. The mystery? On the light side and none too plausible-but, really, who cares?

From the Publisher

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

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

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

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

"Hilarious satire of suburbia" — People magazine

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

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

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

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

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

“Isaacs’ pitch is perfect.” — New York Times Book Review

“Isaacs is a shrewd and witty observer of contemporary life.” — Sun-Sentinel [South Florida]

The Boston Globe

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

New York Times Book Review on RED WHITE AND BLUE

A big, fat, happy feast of a book…[Isaacs’] most confident and appealing.

People on Isaac's previous work

Murder, sex, and humor make for a wickedly entertaining combination.

Booklist

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

Entertainment Weekly on Isaac's previous work

Isaacs delivers witty, wicked satire from begining to end.

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.

Sun-Sentinel [South Florida]

Isaacs is a shrewd and witty observer of contemporary life.

New York Times Book Review

Isaacs’ pitch is perfect.

Entertainment Weekly

Isaacs delivers witty, wicked satire from begining to end.

People

Murder, sex, and humor make for a wickedly entertaining combination.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170093243
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	11/01/2005
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Excerpt from

Chapter One

On an unseasonably warm Halloween night, while I was reading a snappy treatise on Wendell Willkie'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 Morgan and eighteen-month-old Travis, canner of peach salsa, collector of vintage petit point, and ex-president of Citizens for a More Beautiful Shorehaven vanished from Long Island into thin air.

Odd. Upper-middle-class suburban women with Rolexes and biweekly lip-waxing appointments tend not to disappear. Though I had never met her, Courtney sounded especially solid. Less than a year before, there had been a page one feature in the local paper about her new business. StarBaby produced videos of baby's first year. "I thought it would succeed because I knew in my heart of hearts there were thousands just like me!" Courtney was quoted as saying. "It all started when Greg and I were watching a video we'd made of Morgan, our oldest. Fifteen minutes of Morgan staring at the mobile in her crib! A beautiful, intelligent stare, but still...After that, another fifteen of her sucking her thumb! Not much else. Suddenly it hit me that we'd never taken out the videocam for Travis, our second, until he was six months old!" (I've never been able to understand this generation's infatuation for using last names as first names. Admittedly it's a certain kind of name: you don't see little Greenberg Johnsons gadding about in sailor suits.) Anyhow, Courtney went on: "I was so sad. And guilty! Look what we'd missed! That's when I thought, it would be so great if a professional filmmaker could have shown up once a month and made a movie starring my son!"

Though not unmindful of the Shorehaven Beacon's aggressively perky style, I sensed Courtney Bryce Logan was responsible for at least half those exclamation points. Clearly, she was one of those incorrigibly upbeat women I have never been able to comprehend, much less be. She'd left a thrilling, high-powered job in Manhattan. She'd traded in her brainy and hip investment-banking colleagues for two tiny people bent on exploring the wonders inside their nostrils. And? Did even a single tear of regret slide down her cheek as she watched her children watching Sesame Street? Was there the slightest lump in her throat as the 8:11, packed with her Dana Buchman-suited contemporaries, chugged off to the city? Nope. Apparently, for can-do dames like Courtney, being a full-time mom was full-time bliss. Ambivalence? Please! Retirement was merely a segue into a new career, motherhood, another chance to strut their stuff.

However, what I liked about her was that she spoke about Shorehaven not just with affection but with appreciation, with familiarity with its history. Well, all right, with its myths. She mentioned to the reporter that one of the scenic backgrounds StarBaby used was our town dock. She said: "Walt Whitman actually wrote his two-line poem 'To You' right there!" In truth, Courtney was just perpetuating a particularly dopey local folktale, but I felt grateful to her for having considered our town (and our Island-born poet) important.

I think I even said to myself, Gee, I should get to know her. Well, I'm a historian. I have inordinate warmth for anyone who invokes the past in public. My working hours are spent at St. Elizabeth's College, mostly squandered in history department shriek-fests. I am an adjunct professor at this alleged institution of higher learning, a formerly all-female, formerly nun-run, formerly first-rate school across the county border in the New York City borough of Queens. Anyhow, for two and a half seconds I considered giving Courtney a call and saying hi. Or even Hi! My name is Judith Singer and let's have lunch. But like most of those assertive notions, it was gone by the end of the next heartbeat.

Speaking of heartbeats...Before I get into Courtney Logan's stunning disappearance and the criminal doings surrounding it, I suppose a few words about my situation wouldn't hurt. I am what the French call une femme d'un certain âge. In my case, the âge is fifty-four, a fact that usually fills me with disbelief, to say nothing of outrage. Nonetheless, although I still have the smooth olive skin, dark hair, and almond-shaped eyes of a mature extra in a Fellini movie, my dewy days are over. My children are in their twenties. Kate is a lawyer, an associate in the corporate department of Johnson, Bonadies and Eagle, a Wall Street firm whose founding partners drafted the boilerplate of the restrictive covenants designed to keep my grandparents out of their neighborhoods. Joey works in the kitchen of an upscale Italian deli in Greenwich Village making overpriced mozzarella cheese; he is also film critic for a surprisingly intelligent, near-insolvent Web 'zine called night.

As for me, I have been a widow for two years. My husband, Bob, the king of crudites, flat of belly and firm of thigh, a man given to barely suppressed sighs of disappointment whenever he saw me accepting a dessert menu from a waiter (which, okay, I admit I never declined), died at age fifty-five, one-half day after triumphantly finishing the New York Marathon in four hours and twelve minutes. One minute he was squeezing my hand in the emergency room, a reassuring pressure, but I could see the fear in his eyes. As I squeezed back, he slipped away. Just like that. Gone, before I could say, Don't worry, Bob, you'll be fine. Or, I love you, Bob.

Except when the love of...

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