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Compromising Positions

The brilliant debut that's sold over a million copies-now in trade paperback for the first time!

Rediscover the "wonderfully funny, deliciously mean" (New York Times) novel that launched Susan Isaacs' New York Times bestselling career-and introduced Long Island housewife Judith Singer, her most beloved character. Judith is smart and funny, with a gorgeous husband and wonderful kids. She's also incredibly bored, having put her Ph.D. plans on hold for a life of housekeeping and nose-wiping. So when a local dentist is found murdered, and the police suspect her neighbor, that's all the excuse Judith needs to jump in and begin her own investigation. It seems the deceased periodontist was quite the Don Juan of the PTA, with a habit of taking incriminating photos. In between school runs and making dinner, Judith is drawn deeper into the case-and closer to the sexy police detective in charge.

Long Time No See

In Susan Isaac's Long Time No See, Courtney Logan, former investment analyst, devoted mother, and Long Island housewife, leaves her home on Halloween night for a quick trip to the grocery store. Five months later, her badly decomposed body is found floating in the backyard pool, concealed by the pool cover.

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

It's been twenty years, and Judith's life has definitely changed. Now a history professor and a widow, she hasn't seen Nelson Sharpe of the Nassau County Police Department in all that time. But she still can't get her one-time lover out of her head. Her life takes an unexpected turn, however, when former investment banker turned suburban mommy extraordinaire Courtney Logan vanishes from Long Island into thin air.

Everyone suspects husband, Greg, the darkly handsome son of flashy Long Island mobster Fancy Phil Lowenstein. Ever the good neighbor, Judith offers her services to Greg, but he shows her the door, thinking she's just a nut. His father, however, isn't so sure -- he just may have other plans for the wily Judith...

Magic Hour

Movie producer Sy Spencer -- one of the premier summer residents of the Hamptons, Long Island's oh-so-fashionable beach resort for everyone who is anyone -- has hosted his last power clambake, thanks to whoever shot him dead beside his oceanfront pool.

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

After All These Years: A Novel

The day after her lavish wedding anniversary bash, Rosie Meyers gets a big surprise: her nouveau riche husband, Richie, is leaving her for a sultry, sophisticated, size-six MBA. So, when he's found murdered in their exquisitely appointed kitchen, no one is surprised to find Rosie's prints all over the weapon.

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.

E-book extra: "To the Mystery!," a speech to the Mystery Writers of America by Susan Isaacs.

Another model marriage ends with a corpse in the kitchen, and a spouse on the run. People magazine: "Isaacs scores again with this relentlessly funny... entertaining, and imaginative mystery."

Past Perfect: A Novel

In Past Perfect, Susan Isaacs gives us one of her most glorious characters ever: bright, buoyant, and borderline luscious Katie Schottland. Katie seems to have the ideal life: a great husband, a precocious and winning ten-year-old son, and a dream job -- writer for the long-running TV series Spy Guys. But all is not as splendid as it should be because writing about the espionage business isn't nearly as satisfying as working in it.

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?

Any Place I Hang My Hat: A Novel

Amy wasn't born to fortune. Her mother abandoned her before her first birthday and her father couldn't handle anything as conventional as parenting. Amy worked for her luck. At age fourteen, she got herself a scholarship to a New England boarding school, then to Harvard, then to Columbia School of Journalism. She's smart, she's enterprising, but after a few years as a reporter for a prestigious magazine, she doesn't know who she is or how to connect.

Red, White, and Blue: A Novel

Compromising Positions to Lily White--seven critically acclaimed novels, seven New York Times bestsellers. Now, with her eighth novel, Susan Isaacs has written her finest work yet. Red, White and Bluetells the story of two ordinary Americans who find it within themselves to become extraordinary heroes.

Charlie Blair of Wyoming and Lauren Miller of New York start out as strangers. They are drawn together by an appalling hate crime and by their mutual passion for justice. Yet they share more than a sense of fair play. They are not simply kindred spirits but actual kin, descendants of immigrants who met on a boat on their way to America, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty.

Special Agent Blair of the FBI has the numbing job of a bureaucrat and the soul of a cowboy. A wry Westerner from his Stetson to his boots, he also happens to be the great-great-grandson of . . . Dora Blaustein? Dora what? True, although he is unaware of that particular ancestor. A nearly burned-out case at thirty-four, he is about to walk away from the safe world of paper-pushing to risk his life in Wyoming, infiltrating an armed, white supremacist, viciously anti-Semitic group called Wrath. Wyoming born and bred, Charlie seems the perfect choice for this undercover operation, because who in Wrath could question this whiter-than-white man, so clearly one of their own?

Also in Jackson Hole is Charlie's apparent opposite. Gen-X Lauren Miller is articulate, ironic--and unwaveringly liberal. A journalist from Long Island, she has been hired by the Jewish News to investigate a bombing that Wrath is suspected to be behind. Lauren's job is to know who, what, where and when, of course. But most of all, she is compelled to discover why. Why are all these people who've never met a Jew in their lives obsessed with Jews--and why do they want them dead? Just who is it who gets to define who is an American?

With narrative grace, insight and her trademark exuberant wit, Isaacs not only chronicles Lauren's and Charlie's investigations, but explores their American heritage as well: How did their forebears--how did all of our forebears--get from there to here? And what can this mountain man and this suburban woman possibly share--except a few random genes?

Intelligent, exhilarating and intensely moving, Red, White and Blue is a novel about what makes Americans American.

There Lies a Hidden Scorpion

When Nick and Julia Lambros hang the "Closed for Vacation" sign on their Delphi, Georgia restaurant, what they've planned is a joyful trip to Tarpon Springs, Florida, for the wedding of Nick's godchild Kate to Alex Kyriakidis, the son of a wealthy hotel owner. A reunion with Greek friends and family and a week's stay at the beautiful Mediterranean-style hotel couldn't be more needed - or deserved.

But from the moment Nick and Julia arrive in Florida, it seems like rest and relaxation are just not in the cards. First they witness a car swerving out of control and into the bay, forcing Nick and his cousin Spiros to rush to the sinking passengers' rescue. Then, as a series of ominous warning signs and small disasters begin to close in on the wedding party, superstitious family members insist the pending nuptials are cursed and must be cancelled. Nick and Julia, responding to a desperate plea from Kate's father, once again resume the role of detectives as they try to uncover which of the young couple's family or friends will stop at nothing - not even murder - to stop Kate and Alex from exchanging vows.

For Nick and Julia, it's a race to clear the innocent, expose the guilty and hopefully save a wedding that seems destined for catastrophe. Takis and Judy Iakovou's colorful cast of characters and authentic Greek atmosphere make There Lies a Hidden Scorpion a captivating mystery that promises to keep readers spellbound until the very last page.

Go Close Against the Enemy

Eighth Victim