Tuesday 12 June 2012

URBAN FANTASY COMEDY REVIEW: The Spellmans #5: Trail of the Spellmans - Lisa Lutz

Release Date: 28/02/12

SYNOPSIS:

FOR THE FIRST TIME in Spellman history, Isabel Spellman, PI, might be the most normal member of her family. Mom has taken on an outrageous assortment of extracurricular activities—with no apparent motive. Dad has a secret. Izzy’s brother and sister are at war—for no apparent reason. And her niece keeps saying “banana” even though she hates bananas. That’s not to say that Izzy isn’t without her own troubles. Her boyfriend, Henry Stone, keeps wanting “to talk,” a prospect Isabel evades by going out with her new drinking buddy, none other than Gertrude Stone, Henry’s mother. Things aren’t any simpler on the business side of Spellman Investigations. First, Rae is hired to follow a girl, only to fake the surveillance reports. Then a math professor hires Izzy to watch his immaculate apartment while he unravels like a bad formula. And as the questions pile up, Izzy won’t stop hunting for the answers—even when they threaten to shatter both the business and the family.


REVIEW:

Merging comedy and crime together is often something that is not only tricky but can come off as either the author being too smart and full of themselves or a title that often falls by the wayside as one element or the other overtakes and doesn’t quite present what the reader wanted.

What this title by Lisa does is a wonderful amalgamation of the two, it has solid characters who over the previous books in the series have developed and grown with their own quirks with laughs that work wonderfully well to the reader. Add to this a great set of ideas, wonderfully inventive prose as well as a lead protagonist that you can’t help but love and all in the reader is in for a treat.

The only downside is that you can’t pick up these tales part way through, you have to start at the beginning to get the full flavour. All in it’s a great series and one that I’ll continue to enjoy as this was a wonderful way to spend a sunny day.



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