Books > The Spellman Files

The Spellman Files
The Spellman Files
A Novel  
This edition: Trade Paperback, 384 pages
List Price: $22.99
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Awards and Nominations

  • ALA Alex Award

Description

Izzy Spellman is 28, single, lives in the attic of her parents' San Francisco home, and works for Spellman Investigations - a family-run business specialising in surveillance, tactical vehicular pursuit, artful coercion and what might be unkindly termed a general invasion of privacy. To be a Spellman is to snoop on a Spellman, tail a Spellman, dig up dirt on, blackmail and wiretap a Spellman. Nobody's safe - not Izzy's beautiful mother, not her ex-cop father, not her perfect older brother, not her wildly determined younger sister, not her dissolute uncle. And certainly not Izzy. Still, it takes a special transgression to make Izzy want to quit the business, and an equally special arrangement before her parents will release her from her contract. Suspenseful, sharply funny and achingly bitter-sweet, THE SPELLMAN FILES explores the agonising and hilarious dilemmas of a 28-year-old daughter trying to break free of a family with more than the usual means of sabotage at their disposal.

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    1. Meet Lisa Lutz, the author of THE SPELLMAN FILES
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    2. Bestselling author Lisa Lutz Introduces Herself
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    3. Bestselling author Lisa Lutz reveals some of her previous...
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    4. Lisa Lutz: Spellman Files
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"Fast-paced, irreverent, and very funny, The Spellman Files is like Harriet the Spy for grown-ups."
-- Curtis Sittenfeld, author of The Man of My Dreams and Prep
"Hilarious. My enjoyment of The Spellman Files was only slightly undercut by my irritation that I hadn't written it myself. The funniest book I've read in years!"
-- Lauren Weisberger, author of The Devil Wears Prada and Everyone Worth Knowing
"The Spellman Files is hilarious, outrageous, and hip. Izzy Spellman, P.I., is a total original, with a voice so fresh and real, you want more, more, more. At long last, we know what Nancy Drew would have been like had she come from a family of lovable crackpots. Lisa Lutz has created a delicious comedy with skill and truth. I loved it."
-- Adriana Trigiani, author of Lucia, Lucia and Big Stone Gap
"A spirited, funny debut...a rush of humor and chaos...casual, swift, and hip...A fresh story that works real issues through an offbeat premise."
-- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A fun and irreverent debut."
-- Entertainment Weekly
"Truly the funniest book I've read in years."
-- Susan Elizabeth Phillips
"She's part Bridget Jones, part Columbo. Lisa Lutz's resilient P.I. Isabel Spellman emerges as a thoroughly unusual heroine in her delightful, droll debut novel."
-- USA Today
"Irresistible.... Starts out funny and does not let up."
-- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Addictively entertaining."
-- Glamour
"Isabel Spellman...the love child of Dirty Harry and Harriet the Spy."
-- People
"Lutz is one smart-mouthed writer."
-- Daily News (NY)
BellaOnline, April 25, 2010
...The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz is the first book in a series following the escapades of main character is twenty-eight-year-old Isabel 'Izzy' Spellman, a licensed PI who favors Get Smart reruns ...
Bradenton Herald, March 17, 2010
..."The Spellman's Strike Again," the fourth installment in Lisa Lutz's best-selling, award-nominated, humorous crime series proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Isabel Spellman, no matter how much she matures, will never be able to follow ...
KansasCity.com, August 8, 2009
...Park. Grades 9-12. www.jocolibrary.org/summerreading (913-495-2490) I LOVE A MYSTERY MURDER IN THE AFTERNOON READING GROUP: The Spellman Files, by Lisa Lutz. 1 p.m. Aug. 11, I Love a Mystery Bookstore, 6114 Johnson Drive, Mission. ...