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Izzy (Isabel) Spellman is a private investigator from a family of PIs. When her family gets a new neighbor with the questionable common name of John Brown and she does her best to find out who he really is, he then accuses her of stalking and wants her arrested. Because her parents don't think that their neighbor is really evil as Izzy thinks he is they aren't exactly backing her up. But then Izzy sees that all of her family seems to have secrets that they aren't sharing. Her father is going off by himself to a gym and he's eating healthily. Is there another woman around? Her mother is making secretive midnight raids to harm a motorbike in the neighborhood. Her brother's wife, Izzy's former closest girlfriend, has gone away but no one is saying why and her brother who used to work overtime is now at home drinking and watching TV. And her younger sister is totally obsessed with Inspector Henry Stone, the policeman who worked on her false kidnapping case, calling him her best friend – even after she nearly killed him while taking a driving lesson. Even though they don't appreciate it, Izzy is on their cases, doing her best to dig out their secrets. For the most part, this book is charming and humorous. Izzy lets the readers in on her life as she meets with her lawyer, who is older than god and retired, but he buys lunch whenever they meet, and he is defending her on the stalking charge. This is the second book in the series and there is a great amount of referring to the first book, and that gets a bit annoying after the 50th reference, but all in all the story is entertaining. Don't look for a real mystery though. That is lacking here. The book has fine dialogue, pacing and a load of unique and refreshing characters. Not often do you find a 40-year-old cop like Stone who permits a 16-year-old to say she's his best friend and who sticks to him like glue all day everyday, even spending weekends with her watching Dr Who marathons, without any undercurrents of bad intentions on either person's part. CURSE OF THE SPELLMANS is a rather meandering, amusing comedy with no main purpose other than to introduce you to its interesting cast of characters and to get you to read the first volume in this series.
Reviewed by A. L. Katz, January 2008
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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