The Spellman Files: Document #1

by Lisa Lutz

Book Overview

From the award-winning author of The Accomplice and 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,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416532404
• ISBN13: 9781416532408
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: S&s/ Marysue Rucci Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

great series kickoff

I really like this introduction of a series. I enjoyed how it was written like case files. What a quirky family & how irritating to be investigated all the time by your own parents. I look forward to reading the next book in the series

Love the Spellmans

The Spellman books are fnatastic. I love the wacky characters and the family dynamics in this book series. While reading the book I was torn between wishing I had a faimily this colorful and being thankful that I did not have a family like the Spellmans. The use of footnotes is very clever. You really have to pay attention as you read because the footnotes add a great deal to the story telling. You do need to read the books from this seris in order. All of the Spellman books are great. They are laugh out loud funny. Can't wait for Lisa Lutz to write another installment.

The Family that PI's together...

Meet the Spellman Family. The older generation is made up of Albert, his wife Olivia, and his brother Ray. Albert and Olivia own and run Spellman Investigations, a PI firm in San Francisco. Among their employees are their two daughters, twenty-something Izzy and 14-year-old Rae. The only member of the family to escape the PI business is Izzy's older brother David who became a lawyer. The family is anything but normal. Uncle Ray regularly vanishes for extended weekends and only returns when tracked down. Izzy regularly runs a complete background check on her boyfriends so her parents can't surprise her with anything later. Rae thinks "recreational surveillance" is a hobby And no one respects anyone else's privacy. Double and triple locks on bedroom doors mean nothing. Yet that doesn't mean that people don't have secrets. And life in the Spellman house can be very entertaining and funny. Even though this book deals with private investigators, this isn't a mystery novel. Yes, there are a few mysteries, but that isn't the point. The book is all about exploring the family dynamic of a very dysfunctional family. Yet it does it with love, warmth, and humor. We get the story from Izzy's point of view. And while she is often frustrated with her family, we can tell she loves them. The book starts out a little slowly, but the laughs pick up as the story progresses. I found myself laughing out loud several times and chucking many more. The characters seem like types on the surface, but once we get to know them, we see so much more. This book is quirky, offbeat, and well worth reading. If that sounds like something you would like, track down this book today.

A Highly Recommended Entertaining Novel

"The Spellman Files" is great. It's amusing, and often laugh-out-loud funny. The best thing about it is that it is real - the narrator, "Izzy," is droll and funny but her voice is casual and absolutely believable, and, unlike so many comedies and so many mysteries, neither the people nor the situations involved are exaggerated beyond the quite possible. The only way to be disappointed by the book, I think, is if you go in expecting a traditional mystery novel. This book is much closer to a family comedy, or even workplace comedy, than it is to a book that hangs its story on a big mystery to be solved by the central character, preferably with gunfire. "The Spellman Files" is not one of those books, and though it is funny, it has serious underpinnings, which become evident by the end. It is about, among other things, family and the real fears that families share and protect each other against; the real fear for most of us, and for the Spellmans, isn't whether evil Professor Moriarty will push us over a cliff, but whether we'll make the mistake of stepping off a cliff of our own free will. The good news for the reader is that the Spellmans react to their fears in a very funny way.

The Spellmans are spellbinding

Is it a mystery? Well, not exactly, athough it contains at least one genuine whodunit. A comedy? Again, not exactly, although the comic pacing is perfect. A coming of age tale? Hmmm, no, but several characters do come of age in the book. Drama? No, too funny, with lots of action and a minimal amount of reflecting on the meaning of events. The Spellmans are a family of private detectives who wiretap, tail, photograph and blackmail each other as an alternative to more conventional ways of showing love. As with the charming #1 Ladies Detective Agency series, this book defies easy classification but is mesmerizing from start to finish and hilarous to boot. It could be addictive. I'll be watching for more from Lisa Lutz.

Hilarious, entertaining read and winning characters

Spellman Files is a hilarious, entertaining read with snarky characters, cinematic chase scenes (with a familial twist) and spot-on dialogue. But it's really the clever, disarming voice of 28-year-old P.I. Izzy Spellman that wins you over. A strong dose family dynamics kicks this novel into a higher gear than your typical romantic comedy or suspense novel. Izzy is a private eye in a Royal Tanenbaum-esque family of private eyes who don't know boundaries when it comes to privacy or the invasion of it. One of the early scenes says it all: Izzy, sensing she's being followed in a parking garage, gets in her car and screeches out of the garage. A dizzying car chase through the steep streets of San Francisco follows and, after Izzy can't shake her tail, she stops the car, gets out, walks over to the car chasing her and, as the window rolls down, says, "Mom. Dad. This has to stop." The Spellman Files continues in that vein, with action-packed scenes followed by a comedic punch at just the right moment. You'll be laughing out loud every few pages.