The Spellman Files

The Spellman Files is a cleverly funny debut novel from Lisa Lutz and the first of a series. Isabel "Izzy" Spellman is a twenty-eight-year-old private investigator who began working for her P.I. parents at age twelve, a modern-day Nancy Drew with the gutsy moves and attitude of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She's a gumshoe who loves watching Get Smart and falling for the wrong guys.

To call the Spellman family dysfunctional is an understatement -Izzy's fourteen-year-old sister Rae does "recreational surveillance" (spy on people for fun), Uncle Ray regularly experiences "lost weekends," and mom and dad have no qualms about bugging their daughter's bedroom. And then there's David, the perfect brother who managed to escape the family business.

Each chapter reads like a short story, beginning with an interview of Izzy and how she came to work for her family. Izzy, tired of sleeping in hre car for days at a time and being constantly under family surveillance, decides to leave the world of private investigation for good. Naturally, she has to do one last job for the family before she is allowed to leave -a cold case that her parents know she won't be able to solve or leave alone. But she is unexpectedly faced with another mystery that hits too close to home: her sister Rae strangely disappears.

The Spellman Files will have you hooked from the prologue. Lutz's spot-on dialogue and the Spellman's wacky family dynamics are wholly entertaining and a fresh twist on the mystery/detective genre. One caveat: readers who expect a complex mystery may be a bit disappointed. In The Spellman Files, the mystery takes a backseat to the creative characterization and the hilarious family interplay.