After all these years
(Book)

Rose Meyers was just an ordinary Jew from Queens who married her sweetheart, became a teacher, moved to the suburbs, and had two kids. Then her husband's business made him a millionaire. Suddenly, Rose and Richie have a Long Island mansion, a fleet of BMWs, and invitations to all the right soirees. Rose is in for a shock, though, when Richie announces he's leaving her for a younger woman. The divorce papers aren't even signed when Rose, stricken with insomnia, goes downstairs one night for a glass of milk and trips over Richie's corpse. The cops immediately peg Rose as the prime suspect, but she knows she didn't kill her husband, and she's determined to find out who did. The police are ready to cart her off to jail, and since she can hardly carry out a murder investigation from her cell, she becomes a fugitive with a mission: to find her husband's killer before the police find her. It's a strong woman who, after years of soaking in scented baths, eating at four-star restaurants, and wearing designer duds, can survive in a grungy sweatsuit and dine on Big Macs. But Rose does. And after ripping the lid off Long Island libidos and exposing a series of shocking and sordid sex triangles, she solves Richie's murder. This has that same cross-genre appeal of many of Isaacs' best-sellers, especially Compromising Positions (1978). Imagine Thelma and Louise crossed with "Columbo" with a healthy dollop of soap opera thrown in as a thickening agent. Finally, though, it's Isaacs' sense of humor, inventive plotting, and gutsy, likable heroine that keep this story from being just a piece of silly fluff. Expect demand. (Reviewed May 15, 1993)0060167688Emily Melton

Once again Isaacs proves a dab hand at rattling skeletons in the closets of Suburbia--here, murder and adultery are skewered with this author's typically savvy wit. In Long Island's tony Shore Haven, Rosie Meyers makes an unsettling discovery in her kitchen just after her 25th wedding anniversary bash: the body of her husband, peremptorily dispatched with a butcher's knife. The 40-something ``suburban schoolteacher with a bit of a Brooklyn accent'' fears--accurately, as matters turn out--that she will become the odds-on favorite for prime suspect, and goes on the lam to prove her innocence. With a heroine who gives new meaning to the word ``feisty'' (and a host of other smartly drawn characters), Isaacs shows herself in top form. Her barbs and witticisms garner laughs largely through a kind of recognition factor: she makes observations many of us might have thought, but lacked the verbal virtuosity to express. As if to reinforce the familiarity of her consistently on-target humor, she drops dead-on references to pop-culture icons--Dirty Harry movies, L. L. Bean apparel, etc. She has a field day lampooning upper-class mores (in Rosie's land of the privileged, a housekeeper might commit ``some upper-class atrocity, like folding the napkins for morning coffee into rectangles instead of putting them in rings''), but also weaves into this thoroughly diverting caper unexpected moments of genuine tenderness and sly social commentary. A sure candidate for the bestseller lists. 150,000 first printing; $200,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild main selection; author tour. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

YA-A cleverly written, witty, sophisticated and down-to-earth novel. Rose Meyers, 47, is a high school English teacher who has two grown sons, an upscale home in an affluent New York City suburb, and friends. On the day after her 25th wedding anniversary party, her husband announces that he is leaving her for a younger, more sophisticated woman. Waking up from a deep sleep, Rose goes to the kitchen and stumbles over Richie's body in the middle of the kitchen floor. After innocently touching the murder weapon, she discovers that her husband is dead, and she is subsequently charged with his murder. Before she can be arrested, she flees her home and goes into hiding to find the real killer. Readers learn about the Meyers' life, past and present, through clever flashbacks and quick, humorous dialogue. The novel is filled with believable characters, mostly believable situations, and mystery, plus friendship, trust, and honest relationships.-Debbie Hyman, R.E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Again, Isaacs's (Magic Hour, etc.) formulaic plot device is almost beside the point as she tickles readers' funny bones in her latest Long Island melodrama-cum-satire--this time featuring a middle-aged millionairess who's accused of her estranged husband's murder. ``After nearly a quarter of a century of marriage, Richie Meyers, my husband, told me to call him Rick,'' reports Rosie Meyers, a high-school English teacher whose husband struck it rich years before by cofounding a computer-research firm and thereby launching the two of them into the stratosphere of Long Island monied society. Had she not been so cheerfully enmeshed in her resolutely middle-class teaching career, Rosie adds, she might have seen the writing on the wall: Richie was in the midst of a midlife crisis that featured an affair with Data Associates's very young and very blond vice-president, Jessica Stevenson. Weeping (unrepentantly), Richie leaves Rosie shortly after their silver wedding anniversary, and Rosie suffers one long, miserable, solitary summer--until one night, woken from a Xanax-induced slumber, she stumbles across Richie on her kitchen floor, stabbed to death with one of her own carving knives. The police assume the spurned wife is the culprit, and Rosie is forced to flee to Manhattan to do her own investigating and prove them wrong. Along the way she learns some hard truths about her husband's secret life, and though the true killer's identity becomes clear far too early, Isaacs's ability to keep readers laughing through Rosie's darkest moments should prove cathartic for many among her loyal readers. Broad humor, ebulliently proffered. (First printing of 150,000; Literary Guild Dual Selection for September)

Once again Isaacs proves a dab hand at rattling skeletons in the closets of Suburbia--here, murder and adultery are skewered with this author's typically savvy wit. In Long Island's tony Shore Haven, Rosie Meyers makes an unsettling discovery in her kitchen just after her 25th wedding anniversary bash: the body of her husband, peremptorily dispatched with a butcher's knife. The 40-something ``suburban schoolteacher with a bit of a Brooklyn accent'' fears--accurately, as matters turn out--that she will become the odds-on favorite for prime suspect, and goes on the lam to prove her innocence. With a heroine who gives new meaning to the word ``feisty'' (and a host of other smartly drawn characters), Isaacs shows herself in top form. Her barbs and witticisms garner laughs largely through a kind of recognition factor: she makes observations many of us might have thought, but lacked the verbal virtuosity to express. As if to reinforce the familiarity of her consistently on-target humor, she drops dead-on references to pop-culture icons--Dirty Harry movies, L. L. Bean apparel, etc. She has a field day lampooning upper-class mores (in Rosie's land of the privileged, a housekeeper might commit ``some upper-class atrocity, like folding the napkins for morning coffee into rectangles instead of putting them in rings''), but also weaves into this thoroughly diverting caper unexpected moments of genuine tenderness and sly social commentary. A sure candidate for the bestseller lists. 150,000 first printing; $200,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild main selection; author tour. (July) Copyright 1993 Cahners Business Information.

YA-A cleverly written, witty, sophisticated and down-to-earth novel. Rose Meyers, 47, is a high school English teacher who has two grown sons, an upscale home in an affluent New York City suburb, and friends. On the day after her 25th wedding anniversary party, her husband announces that he is leaving her for a younger, more sophisticated woman. Waking up from a deep sleep, Rose goes to the kitchen and stumbles over Richie's body in the middle of the kitchen floor. After innocently touching the murder weapon, she discovers that her husband is dead, and she is subsequently charged with his murder. Before she can be arrested, she flees her home and goes into hiding to find the real killer. Readers learn about the Meyers' life, past and present, through clever flashbacks and quick, humorous dialogue. The novel is filled with believable characters, mostly believable situations, and mystery, plus friendship, trust, and honest relationships.-Debbie Hyman, R.E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA Copyright 1993 Cahners Business Information.