‘Revenge’ serves up hilarity and family dysfunction
Isabel: What can I get you?
Olivia: A daughter with a purpose in life.
Isabel: Sorry, we're all out. What's your second choice?
The three-line exchange distills the essence of "Revenge of the Spellmans," the new installment of Lisa Lutz's series chronicling the dysfunction and misadventures of one Isabel Spellman, a private investigator whose overzealous methods have landed her in court-ordered therapy and forced a hiatus from the family business. Snooping is apparently encoded in the Spellman DNA, creating a genetic imperative that has family members spying, blackmailing and setting up elaborate stings on each other, producing unexpected and generally hilarious results.
Book three has Isabel happy to distance herself from her PI roots, much to the concern of parents Olivia and Albert, who see her as the heir apparent to Spellman Investigations. But Isabel sees herself — at least for now — as a bartender at her favorite San Francisco watering hole, the Philosopher's Club.
When Milo the bar owner suspiciously cuts her hours — after repeated visits to the bar by her parents — he introduces her to a friend in need of a PI. Isabel finds herself back on the job, freelancing her services as her parents continue to lobby for her return to the fold.
The case of the possibly cheating wife that Isabel takes on is just one thread in this convoluted, episodic tale of a classic underachiever sandwiched between exceptional siblings who have their own problems. Isabel, whose financial woes have driven her to become a secret squatter in the basement apartment of her older brother David's spacious Victorian abode, watches him depart from a lifetime of established behaviors and act more like... her. And if that's not worrisome enough, little sister Rae, historically an intentional academic underachiever, has found a way to ace the PSATS and alienate her best adult friend Henry Stone, tutor, police detective and Isabel's ex-boyfriend.
The story is intentionally disjointed as Isabel spirals into exhaustion caused by an inability to sleep, most likely brought on by the guilt of taking over part of her brother's house without his consent. She keeps forgetting where she parked her car (or is it being moved?) and is then targeted by a blackmailer who threatens to out her living circumstances. At the same time, she faces the loss of a best friend and the budding relationship Henry starts with another woman.
"Revenge of the Spellmans" is a different kind of mystery, full of footnotes, asides and rapid-fire dialogue that has the ability to reduce a reader to guffaws. But Lutz keeps the story three-dimensional with real consequences for Isabel and her behavior, especially in her relationships with Henry and her family.
If the Spellmans are new to you, start reading at the beginning of the series with "The Spellman Files." "Revenge" is full of references to earlier books that might baffle newcomers to the series. I strongly recommend jumping in — the Spellmans will engage you with the offbeat antics of their version of an anything but typical American family.
