Patricia S. (patsto) reviewed on + 33 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
9 stars out of 10. Very good book.
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.
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.
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