“The truth was, the job didn’t interest David. Three days, for the life of me, I can’t remember.” Her brother David, refused to join the family business–he’s rebelled by becoming a lawyer. I went on a five-day bender, sobered up during a forty-eight-hour poker game.

“I asked him what he’d been up to for the past two weeks and he replied, ‘Let’s see. Only his children have suggested he work up some new material.”Ī recent addition to the team is former officer and born-again gambler, Uncle Ray, perhaps the only straight-shooter in the family. Some of his routines–like sneezing Eastern European names–he never grows tired of. Albert has a special sense of humor: “His sense of humor is purely cheap vaudeville, yet everyone falls for it. “Since David had cornered the market on perfection, I had to settle for mining the depths of my own imperfection.” Spellman co-workers include younger sister, Rae ( “Rae would eventually throw everything off balance, but I’ll get to that later.”) Then there’s her parents: her mother, Olivia who met her father when she was spying on a potential brother-in-law, and her father and former police detective, Albert. It’s been a hard road getting there after a decade of childish rebellion. Isabel is a private investigator in the family business, Spellman Investigations. This book won’t work for some, but head into it in the right frame of mind and it’s a fun ride, a modern screwball comedy crossed with spy caper, Harriet the Spy meets Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead.

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