Review: The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz

By Claire Miller

“He described you as a cross between Dirty Harry and Nancy Drew,” her brother David told her. This wasn’t supposed to be a compliment, but she took it as such.

Meet 28-year-old Isabel Spellman, a private investigator with Dirty Harry’s trouble-laden past and Nancy Drew’s innate sleuthing abilities. And in Lisa Lutz’s debut novel, “The Spellman Files,” Isabel leads the reader through her work at her parents’ San Francisco PI firm and her desire to keep her life separate from her eccentric family.

Despite Isabel’s juvenile record of underage drinking and light vandalism, her track record with successfully-completed investigations for the family business is stunning. This smart-mouthed PI knows what she’s doing and keeps thorough notes of her activities for reader perusal.

The word “files” in the title is aptly used – Lutz writes the story through her heroine’s eyes, weaving through conversations Isabel tape recorded (“to evidence disparaging remarks,” she explains), important lists, background notes and the unfolding events. While the ever-changing chapter style sounds difficult to follow, it keeps things interesting and allows the reader to trust that Isabel (and Lutz, by association) will let you know pertinent information when the time comes.

She tells the reader about her perfect brother, David, who got out of the family business at an early age to become a lawyer. She also talks about her younger sister, Rae, who is so dedicated to PI work that she performs recreational surveillance of random strangers in her spare time. And she discusses her parents’ list of offenses that prompted her recent decision to leave Spellman Investigations.

But wait – she can’t quit, her mother tells her, until she finishes one last case.

“One last job? That’s it?” she asks.

There’s never a dull moment in Isabel’s life, it seems. And Lutz does a brilliant job of making the audience wish they had chosen a more exciting life as a private investigator. The reader feels like he/she is literally sifting through Isabel’s personal files, or in the midst of a car chase through the city’s hilly landscape.

Not only that, but the author sprinkles humor throughout her narrative, mostly through the fast-paced banter between characters and Isabel’s commentary on situations. Isabel touches on everything from her opinion that windows should be an acceptable form of entry into a building to section five, clause (d) of her employment contract (“random wardrobe control” stipulations).

“Like my family itself, the contract alternates between reasonable employer dictums and wildly unabated whims. Section 5, clause (d) falls into the latter category,” she narrates.

Reading about the Spellmans’ adventures lurking around dark corners and following suspicious characters only disappoints when the reader reaches the last page and reluctantly admits that yes, the book has to come to an end at some point. Otherwise, Dirty Harry and Nancy Drew fans should be pleased to find Isabel Spellman joining the ranks of badass investigators.