Hi everyone,
Please enjoy my review of Trail of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz.
Thanks,
Ethan
Spellmans Investigations is hired to follow a man’s sister and a woman’s husband. Both clients give no reason for their requests. Isabel “Izzy” Spellman, the main character in this quirky novel, does some of these investigations, but she also investigates her own family members, i.e. mom, dad, sister, brother, who, along with her, are also the owners of the family business.
The pace is fast, the descriptions are good, the dialogue is generally snappy and humorous. Numerous footnotes instead of explanations about people, places and situations familiar to the characters distract the reader from the rhythm of the dialogue and the storylines. Your eyes have to wander back and forth through the pages. There are too many work cases and family issues and problems, but too little time in the book to address them fully and properly.
Izzy is a difficult character to like. She is 34 but most of the time she acts like she’s 14. And she bribes, cheats, lies, drinks, manipulates, blackmails pretty much everyone to achieve her own self-righteous goals. She lives in a very dysfunctional family and is as damaged as her family members. They all come across as cynical and uncaring about anyone else but themselves most of the time.
All the seemingly unrelated stories began to intertwine as some mysteries are resolved but others are born. Things are never as they seem. Izzy tries to do the right thing—what she believes is the right thing—as she investigates and all cases are resolved in a smart and perfect way. Izzy feels like she has to fix everybody’s life, but her own. I guess that’s just her.[FONT="][1][/FONT]
[FONT="][1][/FONT] She uses what she calls the Avoidance MethodTM.
Please enjoy my review of Trail of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz.
Thanks,
Ethan
Spellmans Investigations is hired to follow a man’s sister and a woman’s husband. Both clients give no reason for their requests. Isabel “Izzy” Spellman, the main character in this quirky novel, does some of these investigations, but she also investigates her own family members, i.e. mom, dad, sister, brother, who, along with her, are also the owners of the family business.
The pace is fast, the descriptions are good, the dialogue is generally snappy and humorous. Numerous footnotes instead of explanations about people, places and situations familiar to the characters distract the reader from the rhythm of the dialogue and the storylines. Your eyes have to wander back and forth through the pages. There are too many work cases and family issues and problems, but too little time in the book to address them fully and properly.
Izzy is a difficult character to like. She is 34 but most of the time she acts like she’s 14. And she bribes, cheats, lies, drinks, manipulates, blackmails pretty much everyone to achieve her own self-righteous goals. She lives in a very dysfunctional family and is as damaged as her family members. They all come across as cynical and uncaring about anyone else but themselves most of the time.
All the seemingly unrelated stories began to intertwine as some mysteries are resolved but others are born. Things are never as they seem. Izzy tries to do the right thing—what she believes is the right thing—as she investigates and all cases are resolved in a smart and perfect way. Izzy feels like she has to fix everybody’s life, but her own. I guess that’s just her.[FONT="][1][/FONT]
[FONT="][1][/FONT] She uses what she calls the Avoidance MethodTM.
