| Full Name: | Judith Eve Bernstein Singer Sharpe |
| DOB: | 1945 |
| Born: | Brooklyn, NY (or possibly Manhattan) |
| BA: | University of Wisconsin 1967 |
| MA: | Columbia University 1969 |
| PHD: | NYU 1993 |
| Married: | 1968 to Bob Singer |
| Widowed: | 1998 or 1999 |
| Married: | Early 2000’s to Nelson Sharpe |
| Position: | Adjunct professor of History, St. Elizabeth’s College, Queens, NY |
| H. Address: | 63 Oak Tree Street Shorehaven (fictionalized version of the North Shore Nassau County hamlet of Plandome) Long Island, NY 11030 |
| Phone #: | 516-537-1409 |
| Recorded Cases: | Compromising Positions (novel, 1978) “Compliments of a Friend” (short story, 2000) Long Time No See (novel, 2001) “After Lunch” (short story, 2008) |
Susan Isaacs’s (1947- ) first book-length published fiction was Compromising Positions (1978), a murder mystery set in the imaginary Long Island upper-middle class community of Shorehaven, New York. At the time of her first case Judith Singer is a 34-year old mother of a seven-year old girl and four-year old boy. She is married to her grad-school sweetheart who is generally dismissive of her. In the middle of something like a mid-life crisis, brought on by an unsatisfying marriage and regrets about never finishing her doctorate in History, Judith decides to involve herself in the murder investigation of a local periodontist. Her in-depth knowledge of the inhabitants and customs of her suburban community combined with a keen intelligence enable her to solve the murder. Along the way she receives assistance from a few of her friends and a sexy homicide detective.
Judith’s second appearance is in a short story titled “Compliments of a Friend” (2000), which serves as a bridge between her first and third cases. While investigating the poisoning death of an acquaintance, Judith runs into her former police detective lover, their first meeting in over twenty years. Judith solves the tricky poisoning case but the jolt of seeing the love of her life so many years after giving him up because they were both married to others at the time, throws for a loop her dull but well-ordered life of working for a local oral history project and teaching (having finally earned her Doctorate) at a small college. Loneliness caused by her recent widowhood and a bad case of empty nest syndrome due to the absence of her now grown children make her emotional turmoil almost unbearable. Unfortunately, Judith cannot muster the courage to confront detective Nelson Sharpe with the news of her current availability.
Judith appeared in her third recorded case in 2001. The novel Long Time No See finds the widow Singer still working as an adjunct professor of history at a second rate college in neighboring Queens County. The Halloween night disappearance of a Shorehaven resident eventually leads to Judith being hired (sans fee) by the vicim’s father-in-law to solve a murder. Long Time No See, being Ms. Isaac’s ninth novel, is naturally a more polished piece of fictions compared to Compromising Positions, yet it is not quite as satisfying a reading experience as her debut book. On the one hand, the resumption of a fondly remembered dalliance with the police detective who aided Judith’s first investigation is handled adroitly. On the other hand, the reasons behind the crime and the circumstances of the murder and its aftermath are a bit far-fetched. That said, Long Time No See is a well-written, enjoyable detective story that showcases the sharp satirical barbs that Isaacs aims at upper-middle class Long Islanders.
Judith’s fourth recorded case, “After Lunch” (2008) is a bit of an oddity in that this short story is a re-working of the plot of her first short story case, “Compliments of a Friend” (2000) with some character and plot changes. About two years ago at a literary event I questioned Ms. Isaacs about the similarity of the stories. She admitted that she had re-worked the earlier story to satisfy some obligation she was under, possibly related to her website, which is the only place “After Lunch” can be found. Although the copyright date is 2008, the events in the story seem to be taking place several years earlier.
The greatest appeal of the Judith Singer saga, aside from the coherent plots, humor, satire and good storytelling, is the character of Judith herself. Although she is by no means a great beauty she certainly is attractive. Judith is described as a large-bosomed, big-boned, long-legged, dark-complexioned woman with high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes. She does not attract the prodigious amount of male attention as does her best friend Nancy but usually at least once per story Judith is hit-on by a perceptive man who appreciates both her intelligence and looks. Judith’s powerful intellect is what compels her to butt into murder investigations that are really none of her business and to eventually solve the crimes while managing to escape some perilous situations along the way.
Another appeal of the Singer stories is the small but intriguing cast of continuing characters Issacs deploys to support Judith. One example is Nelson Sharpe, the police detective who plays key roles in Judith’s investigations and love life. He is a multi-faceted character who seems believable both as a romantic interest and as a working police detective.
Judith’s primary confidante is her best friend and Shorehaven neighbor, Nancy MacLaren Miller. Their friendship was forged while both attended the University of Wisconsin in the early 1960’s. Nancy became a freelance writer, married an architect and settled in Shorehaven. Later on in the series she winds up working for Long Island’s dominant newspaper. Nancy is a polar-opposite of Judith. She is a slim but shapely, fair-skinned, auburn-haired, green-eyed Georgia-born beauty who attracts men by the basketful. Much to Judith’s chagrin, Nancy drinks too much and is a serial adulterer. Those flaws don’t prevent Nancy from being an important sounding board for Judith’s theories and occasionally opening an investigational door that Judith would normally find closed and locked.
Judith’s other Shorehaven friend is Mary Alice “Malice” Mahoney Hunzinger Schlesinger Goldfarb, Both Judith and Nancy knew Mary Alice from their University of Wisconsin undergraduate days but neither really liked her back then. So, when Mary Alice, by chance, moved to Shorehaven she quickly latched on to her former classmates even though Judith didn’t encourage the reunion and Nancy actively opposed it. Mary Alice is a painfully thin, completely self-absorbed, almost empty-headed slave to the most recent trends in fashion, decorating and husbands. She has managed to marry and divorce and marry herself into successively more affluent domestic arrangements, her current husband being a prominent urologist. Mary Alice does not have the brainpower to actively help advance Judith’s investigations but her abnormally acute gossip radar and her in-depth knowledge of the social standings and aspirations of her fellow Shorehavenites make her an invaluable though unwitting asset to Judith. Mary Alcie’s other claim to fame is that she served as Judith’s unlikely entree to amateur sleuthing by her reckless and, needless to say, thoughtless dive into a tawdry affair just prior to the events chronicled in Compromising Positions.
Judith’s detecting style leans heavily toward the intuitive school. Her intimate knowledge of local inhabitants reminds me of Agatha Christie’s spinster-sleuth Jane Marple. Her incisive interviewing technique and keen intelligence is reminiscent of Rex Stout’s rotund genius Nero Wolfe. Her dogged investigative abilities recall those of Wolfe’s legman, Archie Goodwin. Her sharp tongue and warm heart could be compared to Mary Roberts Rinehart’s nurse-detective Hilda Adams or Janet Evanovich’s Jersey-girl skip-tracer/bond enforcement agent/bounty hunter Stephanie Plum. Judith’s habit of intruding into criminal investigations without invitation reminds me of Stuart Palmer’s schoolmarm sleuth, Hildegarde Withers. Isaacs’s style also includes playing fair with the reader. A close study of her stories will reward the careful reader with enough clues to solve the mysteries before Judith does.
Susan Isaacs’s place in the mystery genre is not easy to define. Though her first commercial success came with the publication of Compromising Positions in 1978, more than twenty years passed before she returned to detective fiction. Ms. Isaacs filled those twenty years with seven mainstream novels and at least one screenplay; the adaptation of CompromisingPositions into a film starring Susan Sarandon and Raul Julia in 1985. Her 1988 novel, Shining Through, was made into a film in 1992 starring Melanie Griffith and Michael Douglas, although she was not involved with that screenplay. After the publication of “Compliments of a Friend” and Long Time No See in 2000 and 2001 Isaacs went on to write three more mainstream novels, which like all her previous novels, were also best-sellers.
I have hopes that the next Susan Isaacs book will be a Judith Singer case. A strong outing for Judith would cement Isaacs’s place as an important detective story writer. In some ways Isaacs’s writing career resembles that of Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958). Rinehart’s original success was due to the great popularity of her first two books: The Circular Staircase (1908) and The Man in Lower 10 (1909). Staircase in particular introduced a fresh new face to he American mystery scene that had long been dominated by Anna Katherine Green’s (1846-1935) innovative but melodramatic and long-winded mysteries. Rinehart’s somewhat satirical, modern (for its time) style combined with compelling plots and interesting characters made her a best-selling author for most of the first half of the Twentieth Century. After her initial mystery genre success Rinehart branched out into mainstream fiction just as Isaacs would do seventy year later. Almost none of Rinehart’s non-mystery fiction is read today. In fact, her reputation now rests solely on her mysteries and her humorous “Tish” short stories. Rinehart was also active in other media: Broadway plays (The Bat) and screenwriting for the early film industry are two examples that link her to the versatility of Issacs.
Although Isaacs has not enjoyed the phenomenal success that Rinehart once had, she is a better writer and sharper satirist than was Rinehart. If Isaacs set her mind to it she could easily outdo even the wonderful Janet Evanovich in cranking out comic crime fiction. Instead, Susan Isaacs went down a different literary path and presumably is happy with her choice. As with Rinehart’s The Circular Staircase seventy years earlier, Compromising Positions seemed fresh and original when first published in 1978. In it we met a warm-hearted, blunt-spoken, intelligent Jewish protagonist who, instead of living in one of the great American mystery metropolises of new York City, San Francisco, Chicago or Los Angeles, resided in a leafy suburb that harbored passion, crime and evil just like those other more famous crime capitals if only one peeped below its outwardly tranquil surface, Susan Isaacs helped us peep under the surface of our modern suburbs and, if what we saw was not always pleasant, it certainly was entertaining.