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A review by book_concierge
Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz
3.0
Book on CD read by Ari Graynor (abridged)
Isabel (“Izzy”) Spellman is at it again! When the book opens she is making her one phone call from jail to her mother (well, technically, she gets three calls, but don’t tell her mother). Then, she backs up and tells us how she came to get arrested. It all started when a new neighbor moved in next door to her parents’ home and private detective agency office. John Brown (an obvious alias to the trained investigator) is handsome but behaves oddly, and what’s up with that locked bedroom door? Izzy’s “need to know” will NOT be ignored!
Lutz hit it out of the ballpark when the first book in this series was published – The Spellman Files made it to #27 on the NY Times Bestseller list. This second effort is still whacky, and enjoyable, but the various writing devices Lutz uses are wearing thin. How many times do we need to know that the family members are constantly running surveillance on each other? And the footnotes really add nothing to the story line, and several times refer the reader to book #1 in the series to explain references. The basic plot is pretty skimpy, but the novel does begin to explore a possible relationship between Izzy and strong-silent-type Inspector Harry Stone, who happens to be younger sister Rae’s “best friend.”
The audio is capably read by Ari Graynor, but the fact that it is abridged isn’t noted anywhere on the cover or in the introduction, rather that tidbit is saved until the closing remarks. However … in this case, I think the abridged version works very well; it eliminates all the annoying footnotes and several side references that did little to advance the plot. Maybe Lutz (or her editor) should pay attention.
Isabel (“Izzy”) Spellman is at it again! When the book opens she is making her one phone call from jail to her mother (well, technically, she gets three calls, but don’t tell her mother). Then, she backs up and tells us how she came to get arrested. It all started when a new neighbor moved in next door to her parents’ home and private detective agency office. John Brown (an obvious alias to the trained investigator) is handsome but behaves oddly, and what’s up with that locked bedroom door? Izzy’s “need to know” will NOT be ignored!
Lutz hit it out of the ballpark when the first book in this series was published – The Spellman Files made it to #27 on the NY Times Bestseller list. This second effort is still whacky, and enjoyable, but the various writing devices Lutz uses are wearing thin. How many times do we need to know that the family members are constantly running surveillance on each other? And the footnotes really add nothing to the story line, and several times refer the reader to book #1 in the series to explain references. The basic plot is pretty skimpy, but the novel does begin to explore a possible relationship between Izzy and strong-silent-type Inspector Harry Stone, who happens to be younger sister Rae’s “best friend.”
The audio is capably read by Ari Graynor, but the fact that it is abridged isn’t noted anywhere on the cover or in the introduction, rather that tidbit is saved until the closing remarks. However … in this case, I think the abridged version works very well; it eliminates all the annoying footnotes and several side references that did little to advance the plot. Maybe Lutz (or her editor) should pay attention.