Heading Uptown - Hardcover

Nina Fischman, a public service lawyer for the elderly, carries on the Rhoda Morganstern tradition of witty Jewish Manhattanites with husbandless homes and easily stirred sympathies ("Everything that happened to anybody anywhere was a concern. It made it difficult to prioritize"). Serving as executor of her mother's best friend's estate, Nina plunges into her third sleuthing adventure (following Personal Effects ) when she discovers a mystery surrounding the death of the deceased woman's son several months earlier. Her probe turns up a bunch of heartless rich people who dabble in adultery and questionable real estate deals. Relieving the fashionable ennui are a sad, smart, bulimic teenager and Nina's mother, a retired teacher who picked up not just a degree from Hunter College ca. 1939, but also a social conscience and an appreciation of "the moving primitivism of Diego Rivera and the agitprop drama of Clifford Odets" to match. These two characters, along with the disarming Nina, a solid plot, snappy prose and attorney Piesman's knowledge of New York City real estate and ethnic echelons, almost make the reader overlook her occasional inattention to what she has written a few pages earlier.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Chubby Jewish lawyer Nina Fischman (who appeared recently in Personal Effects , Pocket Bks., 1991), executrix of an acquaintance's will, investigates the man's "accidental" death at the request of his teenage daughter. The case involves careful planning, questioning, and a somewhat anticlimactic denouement, but the author/narrator gains yardage with humorous ethnic palaver, prejudiced views of New York peccadilloes, and satiric commentary on the "hazards" of being Jewish. Clear, straightforward, and pleasant. Another good choice.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.