The Spellman Files

Just heard about this book which is the first in an series about the Spellman family, private investigators in San Francisco. Don't know how I missed it when it came out in 2008. I would classify this as a light mystery. Delightfully funny about a dysfunctional family with a P.I. business which even employs Rae, the youngest child who started working there while in grade school. All of the characters are witty and slightly offbeat. The main character, Izzy, is a 20-something who can't keep a boyfriend and has more than her share of woes straddling the fine line between being a Spellman employee and a Spellman daughter. ANd if that's not enough there are cases to solve. There are six book in the series so I have a lot of catching up to do.

This book turned up in my public library queue and I couldn't for the life of me remember requesting it. So I took it as a sign of kismet and brought it home.

It was an odd combination of coming-of-age, family drama, humor and mystery. The more I think about it, the more I think I enjoyed it. It surprised me by being both interesting and unusual. I'm trying not to give too much away and yet at the same time enticing other people to read it.

Suffice it to say, the Spellmans are a family of private investigators who take to spying on each other almost as frequently as they spy on their clients. Sort of puts the average dysfunctional family into perspective, doesn't it?