Fifteen years earlier, Katie was in the CIA. She loved her job (to say nothing of her boss, the mysterious Benton Mattingly). Yet just as she was sensing she was in line for a promotion, she was fired -- escorted off the premises by two extremely hulking security types. Why? No one would tell her: when you're expelled from the Agency, warm friends immediately become icy ex-colleagues who won't risk their security clearances by talking to you.
Until that day, Katie was where she wanted to be. Coming from a family of Manhattan superachievers, she too had a job she not only adored but a job that made her, in the family tradition, a Someone. Fifteen years later, Katie is still stuck on her firing. Was she set up? Or did she make some terrible mistake that cost lives? She believes that if she could discover why they threw her out, she might be at peace.
On the day she's rushing to get her son off to summer camp, Katie gets a surprise call from former Agency colleague Lisa Golding. "A matter of national importance," says Lisa, who promises to reveal the truth about the firing -- if Katie will help her. Lisa was never very good at truth-telling, though she swears she's changed her ways. Katie agrees to speak with her, but before she can, Lisa vanishes.
Maturity and common sense should keep Katie in the bright, normal world of her present life, away from the dark intrigues of the past. But she needs to know. As she takes just a few steps to find out, one ex-spy who might have the answers dies under suspicious circumstances. Another former agent is murdered. Could it be there's a list? If so, is Katie now on it? And who will be the next to go?
]]>Just take their relationship. Nick is stunningly handsome, the blue-eyed scion of a blue-blood New York family. Rich, talented, confident, he will become the world's most famous movie star. Jane is delightfully funny, a dark-skinned, dark-haired, half-Jewish, half-German daughter of the Midwest. Smart, gifted, loving, she will become famous in her own right as well...
From the time they first meet in their Social and Intellectual History of the U.S. course at Brown University, it's love at first sight. Coming together from two very different worlds, they will cast off adversity and disapproval to forge a life filled with work, love, and children.
But fame and success come at a high price--their marriage. Just when it seems the promise of their love might be renewed, an accident leaves Jane hovering between life and death. Now, it's not only their union that might not survive, but Jane too...Almost Paradise is vintage Susan Isaacs, a witty, poignant, and engrossing tale of a man, a woman, and a passion wondrous, heartbreaking, and unforgettable.
]]>The suburban English teacher is the prime suspect -- the police's only suspect. And she knows she'll spend the rest of her life in the prison library unless she can unmask the real killer. Going into Manhattan on the lam, Rosie learns more about Richie than she ever wanted to know. And more about herself than she ever dreamed possible.
]]>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
]]>A straight shooter in every sense, FBI agent Charlie Blair has the numbing job of a bureaucrat and the soul of a cowboy. Dying a slow death from lack of purpose, he jumps at the chance to leave behind Dairy Queen vanilla cones and the History Channel to infiltrate a paramilitary group in Wyoming. Charlie's not the only one hot on the trail, however. Lauren Miller, a bright, ambitious New York journalist, has arrived in Jackson Hole and is bent on finding these extremists for a career-making scoop. On the surface, this whiter than whitebread mountain man and the independent, urbane East-coast writer seem worlds apart. But they share more than they can ever imagine--including a great-great-grandmother and a mutual desire for justice that will spark not only a powerful passion for the truth . . . but an irresistible passion for each other too.
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Heading the investigation is Hamptons native Steve Brady. His prime suspect is Sy's ex-wife Bonnie, a strangely appealing and energetic woman both in and out of bed. As the case against Bonnie builds, so does Brady's obsession with her. Before long, he's laying the case and his career on the line for her, ignoring all the rules, all the evidence, and all common sense.
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