Synopses & Reviews
Meet Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, private investigator. This twenty-eight-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to
Get Smart reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than doors -- but the upshot is she's good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her family's firm, Spellman Investigations. Invading people's privacy comes naturally to Izzy. In fact, it comes naturally to all the Spellmans. If only they could leave their work at the office. To be a Spellman is to snoop on a Spellman; tail a Spellman; dig up dirt on, blackmail, and wiretap a Spellman.
Part Nancy Drew, part Dirty Harry, Izzy walks an indistinguishable line between Spellman family member and Spellman employee. Duties include: completing assignments from the bosses, aka Mom and Dad (preferably without scrutiny); appeasing her chronically perfect lawyer brother (often under duress); setting an example for her fourteen-year-old sister, Rae (who's become addicted to "recreational surveillance"); and tracking down her uncle (who randomly disappears on benders dubbed "Lost Weekends"). But when Izzy's parents hire Rae to follow her (for the purpose of ascertaining the identity of Izzy's new boyfriend), Izzy snaps and decides that the only way she will ever be normal is if she gets out of the family business. But there's a hitch: she must take one last job before they'll let her go -- a fifteen-year-old, ice-cold missing person case. She accepts, only to experience a disappearance far closer to home, which becomes the most important case of her life.
The Spellman Files is the first novel in a winning and hilarious new series featuring the Spellman family in all its lovable chaos.
Review
"Fast-paced, irreverent, and very funny, The Spellman Files is like Harriet the Spy for grown-ups." -- Curtis Sittenfeld, author of The Man of My Dreams and Prep
Review
"Hilarious. My enjoyment of The Spellman Files was only slightly undercut by my irritation that I hadn't written it myself. The funniest book I've read in years!" -- Lauren Weisberger, author of The Devil Wears Prada and Everyone Worth Knowing
Review
"The Spellman Files is hilarious, outrageous, and hip. Izzy Spellman, P.I., is a total original, with a voice so fresh and real, you want more, more, more. At long last, we know what Nancy Drew would have been like had she come from a family of lovable crackpots. Lisa Lutz has created a delicious comedy with skill and truth. I loved it." -- Adriana Trigiani, author of Lucia, Lucia and Big Stone Gap
Review
"A spirited, funny debut...a rush of humor and chaos...casual, swift, and hip...A fresh story that works real issues through an offbeat premise." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Review
"A fun and irreverent debut." -- Entertainment Weekly
Review
"Truly the funniest book I've read in years." -- Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Review
"She's part Bridget Jones, part Columbo. Lisa Lutz's resilient P.I. Isabel Spellman emerges as a thoroughly unusual heroine in her delightful, droll debut novel." -- USA Today
Review
"Irresistible.... Starts out funny and does not let up." -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Review
"Addictively entertaining." -- Glamour
Review
"Isabel Spellman...the love child of Dirty Harry and Harriet the Spy." -- People
Synopsis
From the award-winning author of
The Passenger comes the first novel in the hilarious Spellman Files mystery series featuring Isabel "Izzy" Spellman (part Nancy Drew, part Dirty Harry) and her highly functioning yet supremely dysfunctional family of private investigators.
Meet Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, private investigator. This twenty-eight-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to Get Smart reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than doors--but the upshot is she's good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her family's firm, Spellman Investigations. Invading people's privacy comes naturally to Izzy. In fact, it comes naturally to all the Spellmans. If only they could leave their work at the office. To be a Spellman is to snoop on a Spellman; tail a Spellman; dig up dirt on, blackmail, and wiretap a Spellman.
Izzy walks an indistinguishable line between Spellman family member and Spellman employee. Duties include: completing assignments from the bosses, aka Mom and Dad (preferably without scrutiny); appeasing her chronically perfect lawyer brother (often under duress); setting an example for her fourteen-year-old sister, Rae (who's become addicted to "recreational surveillance"); and tracking down her uncle (who randomly disappears on benders dubbed "Lost Weekends"). But when Izzy's parents hire Rae to follow her (for the purpose of ascertaining the identity of Izzy's new boyfriend), Izzy snaps and decides that the only way she will ever be normal is if she gets out of the family business. But there's a hitch: she must take one last job before they'll let her go--a fifteen-year-old, ice-cold missing person case. She accepts, only to experience a disappearance far closer to home, which becomes the most important case of her life.
Synopsis
Meet Izzy Spellman, a 28-year-old private eye working for her family's investigative business--a family that puts the RfunS in dysfunctional--in this irresistible, laugh-out-loud debut. Abridged. 5 CDs.
Synopsis
Isabel Spellman's life consists of twenty-four hour surveillance, routine investigations into her acquaintances, and listening devices planted in her deadbolt locked room. For the twenty-eight year old in a family composed almost entirely of private investigators or former cops, the tools of the trade turn typical family dysfunction into commonplace espionage.
Aptly described as Nancy Drew meets Dirty Harry, Isabel has always lived in the shadow of David, the perfect younger brother, a lawyer. Her younger sister, fourteen-year-old Rae, is addicted to "recreational surveillance" and anything with obscene amounts of sugar, and can be found, when the going gets tough, drowning her sorrows in a soda at Isabel's favorite bar. Rae's namesake, Uncle Ray, routinely disappears on benders the family dubs "Lost Weekends."
When their parents hire Rae to follow Isabel in order to ascertain the identity of a suspected new boyfriend, Isabel snaps -- and quits the business. Easier said than done, with wiretapping and coercion part of the family dynamic. Her parents make her a deal: solve one last case -- the Snow case -- and her employment contract with Spellman Inc will be declared null and void. The kicker: the Snow case is decades old, ice cold, and more twisted than a pretzel. Isabel throws herself headlong into what she thinks is the most crucial case of her life. And then her sister Rae disappears, and "crucial" takes on a whole new meaning....
The Spellman Files is a hilarious, and at times suspenseful, novel about a modern family with a highly unique way of loving, and living -- and making a living -- oftentimes in harmony.
Synopsis
Isabel Spellman may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism -- but she's good at her job as a licensed P.I. with her family's firm, Spellman Investigations. Invading people's privacy comes naturally to Izzy and all the Spellmans. If only they could leave their work at the office. Izzy walks an indistinguishable line between Spellman family member and Spellman employee. But when Izzy decides to get out of the family business in search of normalcy, she ends up taking on the most important case of her life. The Spellman Files is an unforgettable introduction to the Spellman family in all its lovable chaos.
About the Author
Lisa Lutz attended UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine, the University of Leeds in England and San Francisco State University, although she still does not have a bachelor's degree. Lisa spent most of the 1990s hopping through a string of low-paying odd jobs while writing and rewriting the screenplay Plan B, a mob comedy. After the film was made in 2000, she vowed she would never write another screenplay. Though she's not on the lam, Lisa has not had a permanent residence in over two years. She's calling Seattle home, for now.Ari Graynor's theater credits include Little Dog Laughed, Brooklyn Boy, Dog Sees God, Spanish Girl, Fall, King Lear, and Into the Woods. Films include For Your Consideration, The Great New Wonderful, Game 6, Imaginary Heroes, and Mystic River. On television, she has appeared in Veronica Mars, The Sopranos, and LawandOrder: SVU.