| The Spellman Files: A Novel |  | Author: Lisa Lutz
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: eBooks
In Stock
Rating:  118 reviews
Sales Rank: 2,837
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Pages: 368
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
Publication Date: March 13, 2007
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Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 118
 Dizzy Izzy August 9, 2010
Kate Oszko (Brisbane, Australia)
The Spellmans are a wacky family - perfect big brother David, black sheep Isabel (the narrator) and little sister Rae (who learns the lessons of negotiation at a very young age). The girls together with their parents for the family firm of Spellman Investigations. David is a high level lawyer, but he gets drawn into the craziness quite regularly.
This is a clever and funny book; Isabel is constantly making lists about ex-boyfriends (even future ex-boyfriends), lost weekends and other events in the family history. She is always getting into scrapes, but her heart is definitely in the right place.
Aside from stalking future ex-boyfriends, she is constantly fending off her parents' snooping around in her life. as she lives at home, this is quite difficult. Uncle Ray joins the happy family part way through the book, adding to the mayhem.
The cold missing person's case her parents assign her is meant to keep her running in circles, but she surprises everyone by solving it.
It is a merry romp of a book, written with pace and humour.
Crazy family July 1, 2010
Helena Visser (Petersburg, Alaska)
This book is just a little to crazy for me, it was ok but the family is just a little too nuts for me.
 Offbeat and quirky, a book you can't pass up! June 25, 2010
GinRobi (Timmins, ON, Canada)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Isabel Spellman grew up purposely being the complete opposite of her "absolutely perfect in every way" older brother. So she did the only thing that came naturally: Rebelled in every way, shape and form. Constantly getting into trouble. It didn't help having private investigators for parents who taught their children the business early. Isabel used those skills to land herself in all that trouble.
They spy and blackmail each other as much as they spy for their clients. But Izzy's patience is tested when her parents assign her fourteen-year-old sister the job of spying on her for the purpose of identifying Izzy's boyfriend. Things go from bad to worse, Izzy has had it, and decides to quit. So, her parents persuade her to take one last case - the dead-cold missings persons case. Negotiations ensue, and Izzy is to work the case for 2 months, whether she solves it or not, and she'll be able to leave without any hounding from her parents.
But as Izzy's suspicions grow, with facts in the case that just don't add up, Albert and Olivia do everything in their power to stop Isabel's pursuit. But Izzy's doggedly determined to find out what happened to Andrew Snow, no matter what.
And just when Izzy believes she has a break in the case, her sister, Rae, goes missing. Question is: Does Rae's disappearance have anything to do with the Snow case?
**Worthwhile read, something for everyone.
It's hard to try and determine which genre to put this book in. The spine specifically says "Fiction", but it has other genres tied in. There is a case, a mystery that needs solving, but it's not the basis of the plot.
There is comedy. Between the spying, the dirt, the blackmail, the negotiations, your snorting with laughter at some of the characters antics.
There is a little drama. Not only does little sister Rae go missing, the family does what they can to find her, you feel what Izzy's feeling. But Uncle Ray needs to be included in that drama. "Lost Weekends" are the norm; Uncle Ray disappears for days on end, drinking, gambling, and bedding women. I cried when Izzy and Rae went to Reno to bring him back the final time, only they weren't bringing him back the way the family usually did.
Well worth the read! My mistake was reading the excerpt of the next book in the series, Curse of the Spellmans. LOL, now I really want to get my hands on that book!
High on Fun, Low on Plot and Suspense June 8, 2010
Claire McManus
Book Club Review
THE SPELLMAN FILES
by Lisa Lutz
Our book club's book for June was THE SPELLMAN FILES, by Lisa Lutz. Several of us had heard about the series, but none of us had read it, and we thought it sounded like great fun. Having read a few books that were later in series and having been disappointed in them, we decided we'd start with the first book of a series, which is why we chose this one (instead of a later one in the series).
The Spellmans are a San Francisco family of private investigators that spends their days spying on people and on one another. Dad is a retired police officer, and Mom is his partner. From the earliest days, the children - overachieving David, precocious Rae, and tough-girl Isabel/Izzy (who's also the narrator) - learn how to "surveill" people. As the book opens, Izzy is telling her family story to the detective who's investigating the disappearance of her baby sister.
It's a little difficult to describe the book in more detail than this. It is essentially a series of anecdotes about Izzy's boyfriends (currents and exes), life in the Spellman house, and the extent to which the Spellmans go in order to spy on one another. Mom and Dad routinely run background checks on Izzy's boyfriends, and all the Spellmans have a penchant for breaking the headlights and taillights of cars, even when they belong to family members, because doing so makes a car easier to tail at night.
The Spellmans are functional-but-dysfunctional in the prototypically American way, and they're all drawn with broad strokes. The family dynamics are captured well (for those of us who thought the lengths the Spellmans go to, in order to keep tabs on one another, are insane, we had only to reminisce about our own families to see the truth in the book). The book is a little self-consciously wacky, but for the most part we thought it clever, and it certainly does deliver on its promise of being a light, fun read.
The problem we found is that there really is no STORY until the second half of the book, when Izzy gets pulled into a cold case surrounding a young man with a domineering mother who disappeared years earlier. That mystery is pretty good, but it doesn't take sleuths to get the answers; it's really more Izz making a complete pain of herself until someone decides to tell her what's going on. The frame story of the disappearance of Rae - which is the ostensible reason for Izzy telling her life story - just doesn't work; no investigating police officer wants to hear all about the suspect's ex-boyfriends for hours at a time. So, in this sense, THE SPELLMAN FILES reads more as a sitcom than as a novel, which is just fine if you can have realistic expectations about what the book is and what it isn't.
Of the 11 who attended this meeting, 6 said they'd read more by this author; 5 felt they'd overdosed on the book and didn't want to go back for more. Those who liked it enjoyed the humor and the herky-jerky narrative; those who didn't like were annoyed by the pages without any story and the family dynamics (particularly young Rae, a ten-year-old blackmailer and sugar addict who didn't ring true). At the end of the day, it was certainly a different book; I personally might be willing to try another book in the series to see if the mysteries improve.
I love the Spellmans!! May 29, 2010
Hydee M. Mcmurrian (Boise, ID)
This is one of the funniest books I've ever read! I love love love the Spellmans. I don't give many 5 star reviews, however when people ask me to reccomend a book, this one is almost always the first one that comes to mind.
I think it should be required reading in high school.... seriously, they make all the students read the classics and some of those are soooooo boring it's no wonder kids don't like to read anymore. If this book was required at least there would be one book that I think almost anyone would enjoy.
An absolute delight.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 118
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