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Nina Fischman #6
Survival Instincts
This is the latest mystery featuring Nina Fischman, that witty Upper West Side lawyer who's slipping out of her thirties, still on a diet and without a boyfriend. Just three months after Nina gave up everything to follow her boyfriend Jonathan to California, she is back in New York--single, jobless, living with her mother and ready to start all over again. But the doldrums quickly subside when her brother-in-law, the dermatologist, becomes a murder suspect. Ken was involved in a real estate deal with Andy, the dead man, a scientist whose researches involved animal experimentation, and he seems to have been poisoned--just what Nina needed. She and her equally irrepressible mother Ida can't keep their noses out of trouble and start their own investigation. Whodunit? The dead man's striking wife? Andy's lab colleagues? The animal activist? Ken? And can Nina figure it all out as the clues fall into place? You bet.
- GenresMystery
224 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
13 people want to read
About the author
Marissa Piesman
17 books9 followers New York attorney Marissa Piesman (Assistant New York State Attorney General) writes the popular Nina Fischman series and is also co-author of The Yuppie Handbook (1984).
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 3, 2024
I feel like this would have been a great TV series episode
July 24, 2010
The Piesman series (#6) goes out with a whimper -- too bad...
Despite a very weak plot (for a mystery), I enjoyed the 5th book in this series about a self-deprecating lawyer who solves crimes on the side. Our leading lady, Nina Fischman, spends more time worrying about relationships, being Jewish, being overweight, whether to have sex, etc., than on her job or detective work, so there's not much time or space left for chasing clues and unraveling puzzling cases.
In this last of the series, #6 written in 1997, it's almost like Marissa knew this was her last gasp, and gave in to fatigue. After an incredible change of heart between these last two books, Nina not only finally moved in with boyfriend Jonathan, but followed him in a relocation to the West Coast. After three miserable months of being a (Jewish) couch potato, she decides to move back to NYC. Being essentially homeless, jobless, and with little or no savings, she moves in with Mom (Ida -- who plays a pretty lively role) and proceeds to enjoy sponging for several months. Her more or less perfect sister, Laura (who 'longside her husband "Ken" sounded like a ringer for Mattel's "Barbie") talks her into chasing down the murder of a friend's husband, which for some reason, despite the most obvious motives and clues in the world, the police couldn't or wouldn't pursue...
So what we have here is really just an excuse to show us Nina's daydreams, her life dilemmas, and her ramblings with Mom -- both metaphysical and physical as even Ida gets into the detective work. We might quibble that there was a good bit of Yiddish passing between them that was somewhat difficult to follow, and somehow the humor we enjoyed from her earlier works seemed forced; while some of the good lines got us laughing, much of the stuff was so overt we either saw it coming or wished we hadn't.
In all, we felt Survival Instincts to be not representative of Piesman's better work, and thus a disappointment. In truth, these tales are really more dramas than mysteries; although light reading at best, they will do little to satisfy ardent detective fans, and this time the repartee just seemed a little stale....
Despite a very weak plot (for a mystery), I enjoyed the 5th book in this series about a self-deprecating lawyer who solves crimes on the side. Our leading lady, Nina Fischman, spends more time worrying about relationships, being Jewish, being overweight, whether to have sex, etc., than on her job or detective work, so there's not much time or space left for chasing clues and unraveling puzzling cases.
In this last of the series, #6 written in 1997, it's almost like Marissa knew this was her last gasp, and gave in to fatigue. After an incredible change of heart between these last two books, Nina not only finally moved in with boyfriend Jonathan, but followed him in a relocation to the West Coast. After three miserable months of being a (Jewish) couch potato, she decides to move back to NYC. Being essentially homeless, jobless, and with little or no savings, she moves in with Mom (Ida -- who plays a pretty lively role) and proceeds to enjoy sponging for several months. Her more or less perfect sister, Laura (who 'longside her husband "Ken" sounded like a ringer for Mattel's "Barbie") talks her into chasing down the murder of a friend's husband, which for some reason, despite the most obvious motives and clues in the world, the police couldn't or wouldn't pursue...
So what we have here is really just an excuse to show us Nina's daydreams, her life dilemmas, and her ramblings with Mom -- both metaphysical and physical as even Ida gets into the detective work. We might quibble that there was a good bit of Yiddish passing between them that was somewhat difficult to follow, and somehow the humor we enjoyed from her earlier works seemed forced; while some of the good lines got us laughing, much of the stuff was so overt we either saw it coming or wished we hadn't.
In all, we felt Survival Instincts to be not representative of Piesman's better work, and thus a disappointment. In truth, these tales are really more dramas than mysteries; although light reading at best, they will do little to satisfy ardent detective fans, and this time the repartee just seemed a little stale....
June 4, 2010
This is the first Marissa Piesman novel I've read, and I'm delighted to say that Survival Instincts is one of the funniest mystery stories I've come across so far. Her wisecracking amateur sleuth Nina Fischman is a hoot, besides the feisty, perceptive commentator on what goes on around here these days. I can't understand why it's taken me this long to discover Nina Fischman. This definitely won't be the last Piesman book I'll read. She's great!
March 23, 2008
More New York Jewish murder mystery fun.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews