Close Quarters - Softcover

Bronx-reared, Jewish and female, Nina Fischman, a Legal Services for the Elderly attorney, imbues her latest adventure with lively wit and brash humor. Spending a week at a Fire Island summer share with Cheryl Schneiderman, a bossy Housing Court litigator with a Red Queen voice and a "heliotropic tendency," sun-spurning Nina is quickly confronted with murder when house organizer and master seducer Barry Adleman is killed by a poisoned motion-sickness patch. Nina's new love interest, neurotic and vulnerable Jonathan Harris, becomes prime suspect: Barry, a friend since high school, had slept with his wife, played around with his money and lost his Mad magazines. Nina believes that Jonathan, a vulnerable and neurotic Upper East Sider who thinks Jewish women are good in bed and doesn't care about a woman's weight, is a great catch, and she tries to clear him by finding the real murderer. Suspects abound in a household of two envious men and seven spurned women. But it isn't the mystery that entertains as much as the author's iconoclastic humor and accurate take on pushing-40 single New Yorkers. Coauthor of The Yuppie Handbook , Piesman ( Heading Uptown ) punctuates her narrative with the right zip codes and brand names.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The good news is: Piesman (Heading Uptown, 1993, etc.) still has a great narrative voice for Nina Fischman's antics. The bad news is: She still has trouble finding something for her wisecracking, Jewish, Bronx-born lawyer to do. Here Fischman agrees to take over a share in a summer house on Fire Island when a co- worker's roommate drops out. As usual, Fischman has the appeal of a smart, chatty friend. Piesman, through third-person narration rooted in Fischman's perspective, digresses on everything from art appreciation (``Scarsdale girls...had the easiest time oohing and aahing. The Bronx girls often found it hard not to snicker'') to Tina Brown's New Yorker. The mystery here is almost negligible. The male schoolteacher organizing the summer share--who has slept with every woman in the house except for Fischman--is found dead in his bed. The culprit is so obvious that readers will expect a surprise twist at the end--but there is none. Fortunately, Fischman's blossoming romance provides better fodder for Piesman's asides. Solid writing from an author who ought to forget the mystery angle and just use her ironic gifts to go to town ... la Nora Ephron. (Mystery Guild alternate selection) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.