The Spellman Files

I know... I know... but
the Goodreads version was too small
to see the details on the cover....

So, just after the holidays, I was looking for a good book. While I did have other things I'd been reading, a good friend recommended a book she'd loved. We had talked before about the... range of narrative I like to read and she thought this hit most of the criteria:

The Spellman Files was a great book. The voice is fantastic and the family certainly puts the "fun" in dysfunctional.

Lisa Lutz's book follows one Isabel Spellman, Private Investigator, employee of Spellman Investigations -- which is run by her mother and father and includes her 14-year old investigat-a-holic sister and just-about-everything-a-holic uncle and tells the story of Isabel's life within the framework of an on-going investigation. She has a brother, too, "the good one" who got out, became a lawyer and made good -- most of the time. 

I'm a bit of a nut for things like this (there really aren't a lot of things I'm not a nut for, but I digress). I loved Harriet the Spy, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys; I grew up on Sam Spade and Miss Marple. These days I end up reading a lot of Cathy Reichs, Tony Hillerman, and Patricia Cornwall. And if you throw a little Clue!-like comedy into the mix, I'm over the moon. I love puzzles and I love to see where the threads lead.

And this book has a lot of leads and a lot of threads. 

I like Izzy. She has, as I said, a fantastic voice. She's tough and funny and rough around the edges and she knows it. She still manages to find humor even as her world starts falling apart. 

And it does fall apart, leaving Izzy to follow clues -and some very bad leads- to try and pick up all the pieces.

I know I'm not saying much, but this is a book you really have to read to understand and I don't want to -- even inadvertently -- give away the game. 

Go. Read. Laugh. Not laughing is suspicious. You don't want to be investigated by the Spellmans, do you?