From the award-winning author of The Accomplice and The Passenger comes the first novel in the hilarious Spellman Files mystery series featuring Isabel âIzzyâ Spellman (part Nancy Drew, part Dirty Harry) and her highly functioning yet supremely dysfunctional family of private investigators.
Meet Isabel âIzzyâ 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 doorsâbut the upshot is sheâs good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her familyâs firm, Spellman Investigations. Invading peopleâs 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.
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 (whoâs become addicted to ârecreational surveillanceâ); and tracking down her uncle (who randomly disappears on benders dubbed âLost Weekendsâ). But when Izzyâs parents hire Rae to follow her (for the purpose of ascertaining the identity of Izzyâs 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 thereâs a hitch: she must take one last job before theyâll let her goâa 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.