As Husbands Go

Susie and Jonah Gersten have the perfect life...and perfect marriage. He is a renowned plastic surgeon and she is a floral designer and mother to their four-year-old triplets. They live in a gorgeous home in Shorehaven, Long Island. At least that's how Susie sees her world. But then one day, Jonah doesn't come home from work. And after several days, during which police detectives and private investigators are consulted, the police arrive at her door to announce that her husband Jonah is dead. Murdered. In the East Side apartment of one Dorinda Dillon, a call girl. Absorbing the shock and horror, Susie is numb. But then, after the initial few hours and days, she has questions. And not just about the fact that her husband was in a call girl's apartment, or that he was murdered--but about her life and what she believed to be true about it. So Susie begins asking her own questions, much to the chagrin of her "proper" in-laws; she even enlists the help of her grandmother Ethel--who has been estranged from the family for years--and together they form a team of proactive investigators. For Susie is not at all sure of the facts, as the police lay them out, nor is she as convinced as they are that Dorinda, whom they arrested, is the perpetrator. As Husbands Go: A Novel, by Susan Isaacs, is one of those perfect mixes of comedy, mystery, and thought-provoking social satire that kept me reading and reading. I loved the characters, finely drawn and true-to-life, especially Susie and Ethel. I didn't care for Babs and Clive, the in-laws, but that was a natural reaction. This story was told in the first person narrative by Susie, so everything was viewed through her perspective. Throughout this tale, I kept trying to piece the puzzle together, and I must admit that, in the end, I was quite surprised. But then again, the clues were there. As much as I enjoyed this story, I didn't find it nearly as compelling as some of this author's other works, which is why I'm giving it four stars. But it is definitely a book I'd recommend for anyone who loves to laugh and try to figure out a mystery at the same time.

As novels go, this one was good, but as Susan Isaacs novels go, this was a slight disappointment for me. I'll admit that I read it with her first and as far as I am concerned her best novel, Compromising Positions, in mind and this is where it fell short. Perhaps I am one of those readers who likes to learn about the murder in the first few chapters and in keeping me waiting for so long to discover the murder, I became impatient. The author did give the reader some foreshadowing when Susie hinted at what was to come, but it just took too long to get there. Ms. Isaacs does give us some memorable characters such as Susie, her parents, in-laws and brother-in-law, her best friend and partner at a flower shop, the partner's husband, and especially her Grandma Ethel who came to the aid of her granddaughter Susie even though she had long ago abandoned her own daughter. I was hoping to learn more about why Ethel had seemed to be so thoughtless in her past. There were a few red herrings and I'll admit I was fooled about the identity of the murderer for most of the book, but in the end the story was resolved with more of a whimper than a bang. I did like the book, which is why I gave it four stars, but that is more for the good writing than the mystery itself. Ms. Isaacs is still one of my favorite authors and I hope we don't have to wait as long for her next novel.

Susan Isaacs hasn't delivered a novel in a while, but AS HUSBANDS GO makes it worth the wait! I was also lucky to see Susan when she came to town on her book tour. She was a hoot!

I had some trouble with the initial chapters of this book. The first half of the book is exposition, and the initial part is an exploration of our protagonist, Susie Gersten, who is gorgeous, rich, and extremely fortunate in most other ways right up until the morning she wakes up to find her husband never came home the night before. What kept me reading at first was the glimpse into the lives of the wealthy and gracious... not the "here's Jaclyn Smith plunked down into some family drama where nobody seems to notice how stunningly beautiful she is" of Made-for-Lifetime movies and also not some stilted drawing room play where having good breeding is equated with wearing diamonds and designer clothes. The book talks about what is done and not done, what is in and what is out, what is valued and what is gauche, and, frankly, that's decent vacation escapism to this Iowa farm girl. However, what kept me reading is that the focus of the book is on Susie's loss of her husband, and her investigation, not just of his death, but of their relationship. I don't know, maybe for someone who has never lost a person they loved, the emotional exposition wouldn't resonate. But I thought that it was a beautiful treatment of true bereavement. The book also manages to work in a lot of other complex relationships to consider, as well as laugh-out-loud observations about almost anything you can think of. I enjoyed it a lot, but also found it thought-provoking and moving.

Susan B Anthony Rabinowitz Gersten, tall and stylish Long Island floral designer, loving mother of 4-year old triplets, granddaughter of longtime Miami TV personality Ethel O'Shea and supremely happily married wife of Jonah, a plastic surgeon who's gone missing (we pretty much figure from the get-go that he's dead, else why that coffin on the cover?), has decided she can't accept the DA's version of what happened and decides to investigate the case on her own. As expected of a Susan Isaacs novel, what happens next is an enormously entertaining read, full of heart, smarts, hope, hilarity and relatives you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy--or would you? Just the thing to take to the beach this summer or curl up with when snowbound or under the weather or just suffering a bad case of the blahs.