num_pages: 6
description: Meet Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, private investigator. This twenty-eight-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to Get Smart reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than doors -- but the upshot is she's good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her family's firm, Spellman Investigations. Invading people's privacy comes naturally to Izzy. In fact, it comes naturally to all the Spellmans. If only they could leave their work at the office. To be a Spellman is to snoop on a Spellman; tail a Spellman; dig up dirt on, blackmail, and wiretap a Spellman. Part Nancy Drew, part Dirty Harry, Izzy walks an indistinguishable line between Spellman family member and Spellman employee. Duties include: completing assignments from the bosses, aka Mom and Dad (preferably without scrutiny); appeasing her chronically perfect lawyer brother (often under duress); setting an example for her fourteen-year-old sister, Rae (who's become addicted to "recreational surveillance"); and tracking down her uncle (who randomly disappears on benders dubbed "Lost Weekends"). But when Izzy's parents hire Rae to follow her (for the purpose of ascertaining the identity of Izzy's new boyfriend), Izzy snaps and decides that the only way she will ever be normal is if she gets out of the family business. But there's a hitch: she must take one last job before they'll let her go -- a fifteen-year-old, ice-cold missing person case. She accepts, only to experience a disappearance far closer to home, which becomes the most important case of her life.
language: English
title: The Spellman Files
titlecomplete: The Spellman Files (The Spellmans, #1)
characters: Ray Spellman, Albert Spellman, Petra Clark, Rae Spellman, Daniel Castillo, Isabel Spellman, Olivia Spellman, David Spellman
genres: Mystery, Adult, Chick Lit, Adult Fiction, Humor, Audiobook, Contemporary, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Crime
ratings_count: 35395
places: San Francisco, California
series: The Spellmans
awards: awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: Barry Award
category: Best First Novel, awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: Macavity Award
category: Best First Mystery Novel, awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: Anthony Award
category: Best First Novel, awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: Dilys Award, awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: ALA Alex Award
publisher: Recorded Books