Takes One To Know One by Susan Isaacs
Grove Press UK
Pp. 355
Corie has retired from her role as
a counter-terrorist agent for the FBI to become a wife to federal judge, Josh,
and a mother to his daughter, Eliza. Although she still does some consultation
work for the FBI, she ostensibly leads the perfect suburban life complete with
a dog called Lulu, a ‘cover’ job recommending Arabic literature to a publishing
house, and weekly lunch meetings with fellow freelancers at a French
restaurant. And she is bored senseless. So, when she suspects a member of the
group of being up to no good – he always picks the same seat to watch his car,
changes phones often and makes frequent interstate trips – she imagines that he
must have a secret life, and she sets out to investigate. Are her instincts,
honed by training at the Bureau, correct, or is she desperately trying to
create some excitement, and Pete from packaging really is simply bland?
Corie
had approached marriage and suburban life with positivity and enthusiasm, but
now she struggles to feign interest in her new environment talking about
children’s homework and kitchen renovations. “I had opted for normality and
gotten far better than I’d dreamed of. But the trade-off was giving up
exciting, sometimes risky work and leaving the exploits to someone else. For
family’s sake. Adventure for moms? The dads got that one.” So, she begins to
examine Pete and his potential motives more closely. She thinks he may be
creating an alter-ego to conceal his nefarious purposes because she recognises
behaviour patterns she has displayed – hence the title.
The
author includes a lot of research as to the way that agents conduct their
business, and, while Cories makes sardonic remarks about some of the training
she received – “The bureau had been big on mindfulness, though they called it
something more butch back then: staying in the alert zone” – her instincts also
lead to valuable insights. Corie confides in her father, who is ex-NYPD and
loves watching cosy British crime shows like Father Brown and Death
in Paradise. “Like a lot of cops, he was a major mystery fan.” He reads Sherlock
Holmes and puts some of the elimination processes to work, casting a net and
then narrowing it.
The novel contains some typos and grammatical errors
that should have been corrected by a more watchful editor, but these are mitigated
by the fact that, as mentioned in the acknowledgement at the end, some people
made donations to Long Island charities by bidding to have a character named
after them, which is a great idea. This is a very easy-to-read novel, which
combines the excitement of law enforcement with the tedium of suburban
domesticity. It may hurry to its conclusion, but the characters are warm and
engaging, which makes them enjoyable company.
