Takes One to Know One
By Susan Isaacs

Corie Geller never imagined the turn her life would take. As an FBI Special Agent, she has done things most people believe only happens in spy novels and blockbuster movies. Now her life revolves around her husband, Federal Judge Josh Geller and her young step-daughter, Eliza. Corie, fluent in Arabic, is now a freelancer for several publishers. She reads Arabic novels and makes recommendations as to which would translate and sell in English. She does the occasional job for the FBI, but keeps that life separate from her personal life as much as possible to keep her husband and step-daughter safe.

On a whim, she joins a group of suburban self-employed people that meet once a week for lunch. Thinking it would be stimulating, Corie soon learns that she does not really fit in well, but can’t really figure out how to leave the group. Then she starts noticing one of the members, Pete Delaney acting extremely strange. He is nondescript, but there is something about him that Corie senses is off. Is he an agent like her? Or is there something illegal going on?

She begins taking more notice of him. After finding out from another in the group that he has been seen acting oddly aggressive outside of the group, she quietly begins investigating him. She shares her thoughts with her father, a retired NYPD detective who agrees there is something going on.

Is he a drug runner? Is he an illegal arms dealer? Perhaps a kidnapper or killer – or just a boring guy who has anger issues? Corie is bound and determined to find out.

Acclaimed author Susan Isaacs has done it again. This page turner has mystery, intrigue and believable characters. The heart pounding action will not allow you to put it down. I particularly like the fact that the final confrontation was not the end of the book. Oftentimes books end with only a page or two of closure, but Isaacs gives readers a thorough ending that ties up loose ends. I really like that I am not left wondering what happened.

I highly recommend Takes One to Know One to all mystery and thriller lovers. Isaac’s never disappoints, she once again has written a fabulously intriguing book and with interesting characters.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: I have a material connection because I received a review copy for free from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Copyright © 2019 Laura Hartman

Takes One to Know One by Susan Isaacs is a unique story about a former FBI agent. I have enjoyed Ms. Isaacs books for many years, including my favorite, Compromising Positions. I wanted to love this book, but unfortunately I did not. For me this book was just OK. Don't take my word for it, judge for yourself.

I reviewed a digital arc provided by NetGalley and the publisher. Thank you.

Cool novel. I enjoy books about FBI agents. Even if you’re not law enforcement anymore, it’s in your bones nonetheless. Great book for the fall season and book clubs!

Corie Schottland worked for the FBI and had a career that she enjoyed. She marries a man that is rich so she becomes Corie Geller with an adopted daughter and a career of reading Arabic fiction. She doesn't hate her new life it just isn't interesting or exciting.
She belongs to a small business group that meets for lunch and she starts watching this guy Pete Delaney. He seems to be obsessed with his Jeep. He watches over it all during lunch. And when he talks about his work and travel it only makes Corie more interested in him. She suspects that something isn't right about him. She gets so involved she starts calling old FBI employees she worked with plus help from her Dad that is retired from being a cop.
It was good but not the best one that I have read from Susan Isaacs.

Corrie was an FBI agent on the Terrorism Task Force when she met widower Joshua Geller and his young daughter.
She retires and marries Josh, adopts his daughter and settles in as a Long Island housewife.
She's a freelance rep for publishing companies, specializing in Arabic language books.
Every Wednesday she meets for lunch at La Cuisine Delicieuse, with a group of other self employed.
She begins to notice one of their members, Pete Delaney, acting suspiciously. Little, quirks that began to seem unusual when added together. He sits in the same chair every week, he can't take his eyes off of his car parked outside, and he has a different phone every week.
She starts a covert investigation, enlisting the help of her dad, a retired NYPD cop.
Is she just a bored housewife with too much time on her hands, or is Pete really involved in criminal activities?
A great premise for a story that takes forever to get anywhere.
This was a highly anticipated read for me, having loved the author's earlier books.
I felt like the search for Pete's wrong doings went on and on. By the time I got to the ending, I was relieved it was almost over.
I did enjoy the action packed ending, although it wasn't highly believable.
I still enjoyed her writing style and the touches of humor throughout, but I would recommend vintage Susan Isaacs over this one.
Thank you to Grove/Atlantic Inc. for the e-ARC via NetGalley.

I was a longtime fan of author Susan Isaacs and was excited to see that she had a new book available. TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE was very much like her previous work except overly predictable and lacking charm. I’m not sure if the marketplace has changed and Isaac’s style is no longer unique or if I’ve just become a more savvy reader in the past 3o years. But bored New York housewives searching for idiosyncratic mysteries within their neighborhoods and landing in trouble is no longer as engaging or funny as it once was. This book was difficult to stick with and not much fun to read. I wish I could say otherwise. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

I’m calling it at 67%! Kept hoping it would get better but can no longer slog through it. No desire to find out what happens because basically nothing has happened yet.

Takes One to Know One focuses on Cori Geller, a former FBI agent. Now, she is adapting to suburban life as a new wife and mother to a fourteen-year-old adoptive daughter. Even though Cori is still on a contract basis with the FBI, most of her days are filled with cooking meals, chauffeuring her daughter to various activities, and Wednesday lunches with others who work from home. Life is fine until she begins to suspect that one of the lunch participants is hiding something. With her antennae quivering, Cori decides to investigate further.

Takes One to Know One is Susan Isaacs latest book and it has much of her signature humor, which is something I enjoy. However, it seems to taper off after the first half of the story, when things become a little darker and a little less humorous. Cori is a good character but for some reason I had trouble connecting with her in any meaningful way. At times she was simply annoying and snoopy. All in all, Takes One to Know One is a good book to read on a long plane ride, but I was disappointed that it didn’t hold my attention like some Susan Isaacs’ books have.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

I have been a fan of Susan Isaacs for many years. I was excited to see a new book, almost seven years after the last one. Though the novel is an entertaining cozy mystery read, it lacks the oomph of her previous suspense-thriller works. I felt the story especially in the first half, was a bit draggy and slow moving.
Cori Geller has traded in her career as an FBI counter terrorism agent to marry the man of her dreams. She is now living in a well-to-do Suburban neighborhood and is a stay at home mom raising a teenage stepdaughter. She works at home reviewing Arabic language books for potential assimilation into the US market. Cori is finding it difficult to make new friends and acclimate to her new subdued lifestyle. She had joined a networking group of freelancers, which meet for lunch on Wednesdays. One of the members, Pete Delaney has piqued her curiosity, and she decides to investigate him further. The investigation process moves at a slow pace and could have been condensed. The novel redeems itself when it begins to pick up in the last third of the book with some surprising twists and turns. Overall a decent read.

Corie Geller is a mild-mannered freelancer. Her husband Josh is a judge who lost his first wife rather suddenly. Corie fell in love with him and his 14-year-old daughter Eliza, and decided to become wife and mother in her 30s and move to a quiet neighborhood with big houses and well-manicured lawns. She works for literary agencies, reading Arabic books and making recommendations for whether they should try to sell the translations or not. Her best friend is a stylist to the rich and powerful, her parents are doing well and still living in the apartment in New York City that she grew up in. She has more than enough money to enjoy life, and she has the great family and good job to boot.

But she also has a secret.

Before her idyllic married life, she was a federal agent. Working for the FBI in counter-terrorism, Corie helped to interrogate terrorists and criminals, her background in Arabic making her a valuable player in a post-9/11 world. She’s been in classes that teach her what to do if she is drugged or kidnapped, she has studied martial arts and weaponry, she has been taught how to conduct herself with intelligence in any situation. She even had help finding her publishing job and creating her new bio, so that she can still occasionally freelance for the FBI without drawing any suspicion to herself. She was taught how to blend in, to be normal, to be almost invisible.

And that’s how she noticed Pete.

As a freelancer working from home, Corie was lonely and looked for ways to make new friends. She discovered that her town had a small group of individuals who all worked for themselves and who met once a week for lunch. Joining the group, she found out that her new friends all had diverse businesses. One wrote political speeches, one did landscaping, another sold things on eBay. And then there was Pete. Pete was a package designer who had been laid off from his ad agency job during the recession. Pete seemed nice enough, but Corie couldn’t help but feel that something was off. Her years of investigating had honed her senses, and her instincts told her that he was hiding something.

As Corie follows her instincts and starts to investigate him, she doesn’t know what she’ll find. Maybe he’s just a guy with bad social skills. Maybe he’s dealing drugs. Maybe he has a girlfriend he keeps secret from his wife, or even a whole second family. Corie starts by checking him out by herself, but as her investigation widens, she pulls in her retired NYPD cop father, her former FBI colleagues, and even her best friend. But is she really investigating a criminal, or is she just creating a crazy story to add some excitement to her life? And if it is real, does she have the smarts and the training to outwit the criminal and get back to her new quiet life unharmed?

Susan Isaacs is back with Takes One to Know One. The veteran author of Compromising Positions, After All These Years, and Shining Through brings us another masterful story of interesting characters, complex story lines, and genuine human emotions.

I really enjoyed Takes One to Know One. It’s slower than the average suspense novel, focusing on Corie’s thoughts, feelings, and relationships. The story takes its time to develop, building slowly, staying grounded. Personally, although at times it felt like a little slow, I really enjoyed the journey of this novel, of Corie finding her place in a new world and figuring out how to express her whole self in a world that sometimes minimizes the skills, talents, and dreams of women.

Galleys for Takes One to Know One were provided by Grove Atlantic through NetGalley, with many thanks.

I wanted to like this new novel by Susan Isaacs, and the premise was fun. A retired FBI agent starts snooping around one of her neighbors, and what she finds begins to cascade into… I won’t spoil the fun part of the story by telling. And the mystery plot line was the best thing about the book. What wasn’t as fun was the boredom of the main character, Corie Geller. She is bored because she gave up her job when she married and adopted her husband's daughter. Now she is doing a part time job that she doesn’t love, married to a rich, very nice, but frankly pretty dull man, and mothering a teenager who’s increasing independence is making Corie’s job as her mom less all-absorbing. Boo hoo. With plenty of money and independence, I had real trouble feeling sorry for Corie, or understanding why she is making some rather unwise choices.

I’m rounding up my review to a 3* because I did get pulled into the story at the end.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Susan Isaacs is an entertaining writer and Takes One to Know One does not disappoint. Corie has been married to widower Josh for three years and is mother to twelve-year-old Eliza. They live in a beautiful home on Long Island and Corie scouts contemporary Arabic fiction for three large literary agencies. She also does contract work for her former employer, the FBI. Corie becomes suspicious of the habits of Pete, a man in her weekly networking group, and opens her own investigation. Corie's friends and family form a delightful supporting cast. Isaac's writing is superb and the combination of humor and suspense make this book difficult to put down.

Do you know those books you can’t stop reading, not because you’re enjoying them, but because you can’t wait to finish them and be over with them? Well, Takes One to Know One is that book. The tone and pacing are all over the place. Is it a thriller? A cozy mystery? A domestic drama? All of the above and none of them at the same time? And apparently, it’s not even 300 pages but it feels like 600. The premise sounded slightly interesting, but the setup and development is ridiculous and far-fetched (the MC makes some deductions and connections that not even Claire Danes in Homeland could make during one of her manic episodes). And then we get to the climax scene, which is sooooooo drawn out, by the end of it I couldn’t care less about what happened to her.
A boring mystery/thriller that manages to be neither mysterious nor thrilling.

What I like about this book is the main character. Corie is relatable and funny. You end up wanting to know what the hell is happening with Pete based on her assumptions and doubts. This book is all about the journey - and how Corie tries to fight her suburban boredom with a plain old investigation (like she was used to do when she was in the FBI).

The idea of the book sounds great. Corie is a ex-FBI agent who has traded a life of mystery for a normal life. She has married Josh Geller (rich, handsome, and widower judge) and is helping raise his 14 year old daughter. She occasionally dapples in some FBI work but it is far and few between.
Still, that doesn't mean the agent in her is dead and buried as she still longs for some excitement.

Currently Corie is working as a part time freelancers for literary agencies. She has a weekly lunch or maybe better called meeting with other local work at home freelancers. It is at one of these meetings/lunches that she meets someone who seems a little off. This sends Corie's FBI agent senses a tingling and she sets out to find more about him.

Yawn yawn yawn. I just didn't like Corie at all and the story moved along at a snails pace until the end where it seemed like the story drank a can of Jolt and raced to the ending.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC

A fantastic plot and a story that's very well written. Normally I don't like a lot of "unnecessary" descriptions, but in this book it all feels natural and very interesting. The characters are very good, and they all seem very believable.

Sorry, this one didn't do it for me. Unfortunately a DNF. I never connected with any of the characters and actually didn't like any of them. The story moved too slowly and I got bored reading the unnecessarily long chapters.

I was excited by the premise of Susan Isaacs Takes One To Know One and I’d really been looking forward to it reaching the top of my pile.

“Just a few years ago, Corie Geller was busting terrorists as an agent for the FBI. But at thirty-five, she traded in her badge for the stability of marriage and motherhood. Now Corie is married to the brilliant and remarkably handsome Judge Josh Geller and is the adoptive mother of his lovely 14-year-old daughter. Between cooking meals and playing chauffeur, Corie scouts Arabic fiction for a few literary agencies and, on Wednesdays, has lunch with her fellow Shorehaven freelancers at a so-so French restaurant. Life is, as they say, fine.
But at her weekly lunches, Corie senses that something's off. Pete Delaney, a milquetoast package designer, always shows up early, sits in the same spot (often with a different phone in hand), and keeps one eye on the Jeep he parks in the lot across the street. Corie intuitively feels that Pete is hiding something--and as someone who is accustomed to keeping her FBI past from her new neighbors, she should know. But does Pete really have a shady alternate life, or is Corie just imagining things, desperate to add some spark to her humdrum suburban existence? She decides that the only way to find out is to dust off her FBI toolkit and take a deep dive into Pete Delaney's affairs.”

So when I was considering giving up on it, just a little more than a quarter of the way through, I opted instead to put it aside for twenty four hours, and then try again. Honestly I picked it back up reluctantly and I have to admit the next quarter or so was still a slog, then at about the halfway point, the pace picked up and I suddenly couldn’t put it down.

I’m not exactly sure why I found the first half of Takes One To Know One so laborious. Told through Corie Geller’s first person perspective, the narrative felt, at times, closer to a stream of consciousness, bogged down in the details of Corie’s life. To be fair I think the poor formatting of the e-arc may have contributed to that impression, as there is no spacing between paragraphs, or even chapters, resulting in an uncomfortable run-on effect. That I didn’t really warm to Corie’s angst regarding the changes her marriage had wrought, probably didn’t help either.

For me the story finally got interesting when Corie began seriously investigating Pete Delaney and the narrative became more interactive (if that makes sense). As Corie considers and discards potential criminal scenarios that Pete Delaney could be involved in, she calls on ex colleagues for information, uses her best friend, Wynne, as a sounding board, and involves her dad, a retired police detective, in her investigation. It all eventually leads to a tense confrontation that I found unexpectedly thrilling.

I’m not sure that I can say the last half of the book was enough to redeem Takes One To Know One for me, but it’s entirely possible that you may not find the first half as problematic as I did, it may be worth a try if the premise appeals.

I felt Corie. Totally. She left her full time job as an FBI Special Agent after marrying Josh, a federal judge, and now spends her days taking care of the house, their daughter Eliza, and freelance reading books in Arabic to determine which ones might be good for publication in English. And she works a little for FBI on the side as an interviewer. So when she thinks somethings off about Pete, one of the people she lunches with every Wednesday, she follows her instincts. She enlists her father, a retired and somewhat depressed NYPD detective, in her efforts. Turns out there really might be something about Pete=but no spoilers. Is Corie right? Isaacs has done a good job at making Corie's FBI experience and relationships credible. This is a slow burn- you'll be questioning whether she's off the wall for quite some time. Loved the characters (Wynne is wonderful as are the other members of the Wednesday group. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I've always been a fan of Susan Isaacs- this was a great read others fans will appreciate and new readers will enjoy.

Corrie has retired from the FBI to marry and mother his daughter. The three are happy and secure. Corrie has weekly lunches with friends from the neighborhood and senses something off about Pete Delaney. Her instincts demand she start investigating and soon she has opened a drama of life and death. There was a little wandering of the plot and some of the characters were bland but enjoyed this first novel by Susan Isaacs and look forward to seeing how she improves and provides us another exciting story. I received a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.