Long Time No See by Susan Isaacs The sequel to
Compromising Positions,
Long Time No See is a novel told in the first person by Judith Singer, a fiftysomething suburban widow with a love of mysteries. When a neighbor, Courtney Logan goes missing, Judith is intrigued. Monthes later, the case still unsolved, a body is found in the Logans' pool, and is identified as Courtney Logan. The case once again becomes new and Judith's interest is renewed.
Curious, Judith goes to the Logans' house to question Greg Logan, Courtney's husband. Greg proves unwilling, but he tells his father about Judith. Greg's father is Fancy Phil Lowenstein, a mobster who claims to be reformed. He offers to pay Judith to investigate Courtney's murder, in order to clear his son. Judith refuses the money, but informs him of the case.
Judith's former lover (from
Long Time No See) is now a police captain investigating organized crime. When Judith has lunch with Fancy Phil, the captain, Nelson Sharpe, is informed. He calls on Judith to tell her to stay away from Fancy Phil, whom he says is very dangerous. The captain's actual role in this novel appears to be comic relief and a little romance.
The novel has many twists and turns, which I will let you, the readers, discover for yourselves. In the acknowledgements for this book, Isaacs thanks many people for their information used in the book, and also says she hopes that, "on the occasions when their facts did not fit the needs of my fiction, I gave the facts the heave-ho". Unfortunately, sometimes the absense of the facts is noticable. Most obviously, Judith has plenty of time to investigate, even though she has a full-time job as a professor. Also in real life, mobsters would find reformation deadly.
Happy reading.
