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.
While I don't normally listen to audio books, I occasionally find myself listening to one on the way to and from work so I can have two books "going" at once. One I'm reading normally and one I listen to. Since I enjoyed this book so much, I thought I'd review it. I found it an enjoyable read, though Isabelle has far more patience with her family than I would! If you like Janet Evanovich's series featuring Stephanie Plum, you will definitely like this book. Lutz has infused the same sort of everyday-life humour into the plot that Evanovich has become so masterful at. I found myself laughing quite often at the absurdities of the situations Izzy got herself into and I think the actress they chose for the reading was an excellent choice as she sounded about the right age to tell Izzy's story as it is written from Izzy's point of view.
I've also noted that there's a follow-up book which I am looking forward to reading. Or perhaps listening to...
Labels: mystery