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After All These Years

by Susan Isaacs

Susan Isaacs demonstrates proficiency in writing as well as wit and humor in After All These Years. Far from her latest accomplishment (written back in 1993) this novel still vibrates with authenticity. Every page delights while sucking you into further sympathy for the heroine, whose dry wit captivates. Ms. Isaacs has had at least two of her other novels turned into stories for the big screen, and while not blockbusters or perennial favorites such as Gone With the Wind or The Wizard of Oz, both were eminently successful. After All These Years certainly qualifies for the same treatment, but then if Hollywood were to make every successful murder-mystery novel into a movie, we'd be inundated!

After All These Years opens with two disturbing facts – the first is the revelation (immediately succeeding a big party celebrating 25 years of marriage) that Rosie Meyers' wealthy husband Richie, has fallen in love with a much younger woman named Jessica, and wants out. The second is that after he's moved away, Rosie wakes in the middle of the night and stumbles over his dead body on her kitchen floor in the dark – to find, when she turns on the light, one of her knives imbedded in his gut.

Unfortunately, and rather stupidly, Rosie attempted to extract the knife – thus placing her own fingerprints on the handle. The remainder of the book concerns Rosie's avoidance of the police, who are convinced that she murdered her own husband in revenge. Rosie is a schoolteacher. Fearful of spending most of her remaining life in a prison library, she escapes from her huge home on Long Island to Manhattan, secretly returning only to question certain acquaintances. In New York she lives with a former pupil, stays in contact with a colleague who arranges a leave of absence from her school, and manages to have great sex with both her pupil and a former boyfriend.

Surprise after surprise comes to Rosie as she discovers things concerning her former husband about which she was totally unaware. In addition Rosie learns more about his intended new wife, Jessica. Then the final pages of After All These Years reveals (in true murder-mystery fashion) the real killer, and the actual reason for the murder. The book ends with Rosie exonerated, united with both her sons, and with a new love to replace the old.

Susan Isaacs proves her masterful abilities in After All These Years. Her sense of humor is always evident, her writing impeccable, and her plot realistic. Like every successful novelist, Ms. Isaacs writes about what she knows best, and in this case it's about the wealthy (and sometimes snobbish) people who populate the mansions on Long Island Sound. Susan Isaacs brings them vividly to life before your eyes, not only with their faults and failings, but their redeemable qualities as well. After All These Years remains a signature contribution to the murder-mystery genre, and we remain forever grateful to Susan Isaacs for writing it.

Alan Paul Curtis

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