Review of The Spellmans Strike Again by Lisa Lutz

From Nashville Scene --

With The Spellmans Strike Again, Lisa Lutz brings a quirky mystery series to a delightful close --

By: Lyda Phillips --
March 17, 2010 --

The Spellmans Strike Again
Lisa Lutz
Simon & Schuster, 379 pp., $25

Lisa Lutz grew up in Southern California, and spent the next decade or so college-hopping and working a string of odd jobs, including a stint in a family detective agency. During that time she wrote the screenplay for a mob comedy called Plan B, which was made into a movie in 2000. Lutz considered the film "unwatchable," so she swore off screenwriting and began The Spellman Files.



"Ten years later, I remember the [detective] job as basically me in the basement shredding old files, a lot of invoicing and paying bills, and maybe five days of doing fun investigative work," she says. But detection occurs in The Spellmans Strike Again — the close to Lutz's four-novel mystery series and another outing with this delightfully dysfunctional family of detectives — most of it by members of the family investigating one another.

That family saga is narrated by Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, whose life has been a series of bad choices, poor judgment, bone-headedness and other deep character flaws. Fortunately for Izzy — described by People magazine as "the love child of Dirty Harry and Harriet the Spy" — her mother, father, uncle, sister, brother and assorted friends and lovers are equally eccentric, and equally annoying and lovable. Izzy's life is an addictive romp from the first page of the book to the last, including all the footnotes and appendices.

"I suppose the most defining characteristic of my family is that we take our work home with us," Izzy explains in the first chapter. "If your family's job is investigating other people, you inevitably investigate each other. This single trait has been our primary point of conflict for most of my life."

This mélange, reminiscent of a Left Coast Royal Tenenbaums, lives in literally armed conflict in a Victorian house in San Francisco (don't call it San Fran), when they aren't sulking, running away, locking each other in closets and/or trying to have a life. Through all four novels, starting with the New York Times bestselling The Spellman Files — now in movie production — and continuing through Curse of the Spellmans and Revenge of the Spellmans, Lutz takes readers on a tilt-a-whirl emotional ride, but in this last volume she brings everything to a tidy conclusion. Izzy wins her true love at last, sister Rae spurns Yale for Berkeley, brother David hangs onto his great new girlfriend, Mom tears up her list of required lawyer dates, and Dad returns the missing doorknobs and light fixtures.

Most shocking of all, Izzy grows up, sort of, although it takes the death of her 85-year-old friend Mort to settle her down to earth. "Every day we get older, and some of us get wiser, but there's no end to our evolution," she reflects. "We're all a mess of contradictions; some of our traits work for us, some against us. ... Over the course of a lifetime, people change, but not as much as you'd think. Nobody really grows up. At least that's my theory; you can have your own."

The Spellmans Strike Again by Lisa Lutz, a Review

From San Jose Mercury News --

It's a Mystery: 'Strike Again' spells the last for Lutz's whacked-out family series --

By Roberta Alexander --
03/14/2010 --

Gripping characters stride across the landscape this month, making for good mystery reading.

"The Spellmans Strike Again" by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster, $25, 388 pages). The Spellmans do not run your ordinary private investigation business. Members of this San Francisco family interfere endlessly with each other's lives.



This fourth and final book is funny, troubling and addictive. If you don't think about what life in such a family would be like, you can skip the "troubling" aspect.

There's Isabel, a 32-year-old recovering delinquent, her unemployed attorney brother David and her teenage sister Rae. Their mother's mission appears to be getting rid of Izzy's boyfriends.

The crux of this book is not the plot, which deals with improper convictions and a shady PI competitor, but this lunatic clan, with its mandatory Sunday dinners, its missing antique doorknobs and Rae's refusal to ride the bus.

There is no way to describe what happens here, but finding out is a lot of fun.

And kudos to Lutz for quitting while she's ahead. Plenty of fine series fizzle when they go on too long.

Review of The Spellmans Strike Again by Lisa Lutz

From The Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA) --

Fans of quirky series will be happy with new Spellmans book --

By BEN MARTIN --
Mar 14, 2010 --

THE SPELLMANS STRIKE AGAIN
By Lisa Lutz
Simon & Schuster, $25; 388 pp.

Lisa Lutz is back with her fourth account of the quirky Spellman family, who have a private investigation business in San Francisco and live their work so thoroughly that they follow, tape-record, videotape and blackmail each other routinely. The average “stalker” is way out of their league: Think having Mike Hammer or Sam Spade for an uncle. Early in the series Lutz coined the term “recreational surveillance” to describe this irresistible impulse.



In The Spellmans Strike Again, Albert and Olivia, father and mother, are worrying about the loss of their retirement investments in the stock market and about the object of obsession each of their children has chosen. Only son David, an attorney known for squaring the papers on his desk, is courting Maggie Mason, an attorney known for carrying partially eaten baked goods in her pockets. Elder daughter Isabel, incipient alcoholic but in line to take over the business, is shacking up with Connor O’Sullivan, a loutish rugby-playing Irish bartender who comps her drinks. Younger daughter Rae, still in high school but since childhood the very definition of “recalcitrant,” haunts Henry Stone, a San Francisco police inspector who once dated Isabel and is so compulsively neat that he vacuums as guests eat potato chips.

As usual for Lutz, the plot is merely the scenery through which her screwy characters run amok. Here, Maggie Mason is engaged in pro bono work for convicts whose claims of innocence appear to have merit. Helping out, Rae and Isabel each adopt a case, with dueling T-shirts reading “FREE SCHMIDT” and “JUSTICE 4 MERRI-WEATHER” which they foist on any and all. Isabel is also investigating the case of a wayward butler/valet and trying to take down another private investigator, Rick Harkey, former homicide detective, now competitor of the Spellmans and always rumored corrupt.

Albert and Olivia are being intrusive, as expected, and secretive, thus suspicious. David and Henry are trying to be responsible — and tidy — but are so outnumbered.

The real fun and the reason these books have sold so well while acquiring a cult following is the personality of Isabel, who has been working cases for Spellman Investigations for 20 years, starting at age 12. Once a happy vandal, petty thief, breaker of rules for sport and all-around subversive, she now calls herself a “recovering delinquent.”

But which of those two words is paramount when the reaction to her planning is almost invariably, “Why is it that all your propositions are either illegal, ethically questionable, or at the very least offensive?” And when told, “Err on the conservative side,” she replies reflexively, “Don’t worry. I’ll err as usual.”

Isabel wonders, “Sometimes I can barely keep track of the galaxy of investigations, deceit, turmoil, clashes, and chaos that I travel through every day.” She recognizes the source: “And so, once again, there I was, sleep deprived, trapped with family, waiting for the nightmare to come to an end. My life in a nutshell.” At 32, this wise-ass has become wise. She even has a philosophy: “Over the course of a lifetime, people change, but not as much as you’d think. Nobody really grows up. At least that’s my theory; you can have your own.”

Isabel is either hard and sarcastic or brittle and poignant. If you think the former, you won’t enjoy the Spellman books, and you won’t like Lisa Lutz. If you think the latter, like me, you’ll want something good to happen for Isabel, and you’ll get your wish.

Review of Revenge of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz

From Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier --

Spunky protagonist shines in Spellman series --

By: AMIE STEFFEN --
February 25, 2010 --

Isabel Spellman is not your typical 30-year-old. She's never had a real job outside of her family that she didn't deliberately sabotage. She always runs background checks of current boyfriends. And if she wants to know something about her family, she spies on them.



It's how she was raised in the Spellman household - and she's quickly realizing she can't escape that.

Onetime screenwriter Lisa Lutz has crafted a perfectly dysfunctional family of private investigators living in San Francisco from the viewpoint of eldest daughter Isabel, arguably the most deliciously dysfunctional of them all.

Izzy's past includes a lot of drunken nights with her best friend, Petra, mild drug use, vandalism and other various run-ins with the law. These days, although her adolescence and juvenile record are behind her, she never migrated into what her parents would think of as normal adulthood - unlike perfect older brother David.

Not that it bothers Izzy much. She's happy migrating through various housing situations, various boyfriends and the Philosopher's Club, her favorite watering hole. But she can't seem to shake working for her parents' private investigation business and can't (or won't) stop spying on people, whether it's for business, pleasure or to get the dirt on secretive family members.

Adding to the melee is her younger sister, Rae, who actually admits to a desire to work for the family business and bugs Isabel to no end; and of course, Izzy's own tendency to find the mystery in every situation.

Lutz's style is comedic, but not exactly in the laugh-out-loud way of Evanovich and her ilk. Instead, you find yourself chuckling at Izzy's reluctance, belligerence and general disdain for secrets, authority and stupidity. She's a smart alec but she's also genuinely intelligent - which makes her the unlikely hero to root for in each book.

The author also makes good use of a plethora of footnotes, which usually serve to sum up back stories, provide humorous asides or even refer to stories in previous books ("Check out previous document, ‘Curse of the Spellmans,' now in paperback!")

If you're a fan of humorous mystery novels, and you can relate to a juvenile miscreant who never seemed to grow up (I know I can), you'll enjoy the Spellman books.

Review of The Spellmans Strike Again by Lisa Lutz

From Publishers Weekly --

Book Review: Books at center of murder tale --

1/18/2010 --

The Spellmans Strike Again Lisa Lutz. Simon & Schuster, $25 (400p) ISBN 978-1-4165-9340-9

In Edgar-finalist Lutz's entertaining fourth and final novel about the eccentric Spellman PI clan (after Revenge of the Spellmans), Isabel “Izzy” Spellman juggles the usual family drama—her mother tries to sabotage Izzy's relationship with her Irish bartender boyfriend and younger sister Rae throws herself into freeing a wrongly convicted man—while helping to drum up business in a dreary economy. While Rae works on her “Free Schmidt” campaign, Izzy investigates the whereabouts of a missing valet with a checkered past and sifts through garbage for a screenwriter client. Older brother David, the only Spellman not involved in the family business, grows closer to his defense attorney girlfriend. On the sly, Izzy is also tailing Rick Harkey, a rival San Francisco PI, and discovers that Harkey left behind a trail of suspicious arrests and conveniently misplaced evidence in his career as a cop. Narrator Izzy's biting wit—mixed with a refreshing dose of humility and sadness—easily carries the story. (Mar.)

Summer reading: Feeds your soul, sparks a laugh, or maybe tears (Lisa Lutz)

From Chicago Daily Herald --

Summer reading: Feeds your soul, sparks a laugh, or maybe tears --

June 7, 2009 --

By Sarah Long --

Just the words "summer reading" take me to a relaxing other world where I am warm and comfortable with hours of unstructured time, mine for the taking. In today's world, such escape is becoming increasingly elusive. But I urge you to fit in some summer reading that feeds your soul or at least gives you a laugh, an escape or a view of another world.

The book I have most enjoyed recently is "The Spellman Files: A Novel" by Lisa Lutz. The Spellmans are a family of private investigators: father, mother, son, and two daughters. The book is written in the voice of Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, age 28, who is quite the wit. Being the middle child, Izzy has issues with her older brother, who has actually escaped the family business to become a successful attorney. He is perfect in every way - looks, manners, brains, etc. - and eschews the other family members' penchant for investigating everything, especially each other. You might say he aspires to be normal and middle class. Izzy feels protective of her younger sister, Rae, age 14. But Rae is a force to contend with because of her proclivity for "recreational tailing" or following people just for kicks. This book is laugh-out-loud funny and best of all, it's the first of four with another one on the way early in 2010. If you liked, "Harriet the Spy" as a kid, you'll love Izzy Spellman...

Medieval forensic pathologist is on the track of 'Grave Goods" (Lisa Lutz)

From ContraCosta Times --

Medieval forensic pathologist is on the track of 'Grave Goods" --

April 12, 2009 --

"Revenge of the Spellmans" by Lisa Lutz. (Simon and Schuster, $25, 375 pages)

The Spellman family, San Francisco-based private detectives, faces its latest crisis when daughter Isabel gives up detecting for bartending. She's in court-ordered therapy for misbehavior on a previous case and squatting in the basement of her brother's house.

She takes a case for a husband who wants to know where his wife is going "... and, typical of this series, the answer is nothing you would have expected.

Izzy's wayward teen sister continues to confound both her parents and the authorities, and spiffy brother David starts looking unkempt.

It's hard to know exactly what's going on. Just hang on tight and go along for the ride, trying not to laugh too hard.

Fresh ink: News and notes from the publishing world (Lisa Lutz)

From San Francisco Chronicle --

Fresh ink: News and notes from the publishing world --

April 3, 2009 --

"The Spellman Files," the comic novel by San Francisco author Lisa Lutz, will be adapted into a film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, Daily Variety reports. "Revenge of the Spellmans," Lutz's third book in her series about a family of private investigators, was published in March.