Isabel “Izzy” Spellman is a twenty-eight-year-old private investigator working for Spellman Investigations, a firm run by her sleuthing parents. They are an unconventional family who don’t see anything wrong with spying on one another and even engaging the teenage daughter, Rae, into doing surveillance work after school, of course.
Izzy is a cool new character on the mystery scene. She has had her share of bad relationships, spent too much time being the opposite of her perfect brother, David, and doesn’t have much of a fashion sense but she is good at being a P.I. Plus, she is also a big fan of the show Get Smart.
On an assignment Izzy meets a handsome dentist, Daniel Castillo. She really likes him and soon they are dating and all seems to be going well with their relationship, except for the fact that it’s all based on lies. Izzy doesn’t want yet another relationship to go sour because of her job. Most ex-boyfriends haven’t dealt well when they realized she ran background checks on them and their families.
She decides that the best way to have a chance at a normal relationship is to leave the business but there is one catch, she’ll have to solve a cold case before she is free. Not only is the case an old one but she’ll also have to deal with her little sister, Rae, who doesn’t want Izzy to leave Spellman Investigations and will stop at nothing to prevent her from leaving, including disappearing.
Unfortunately before the reader gets to the mystery of the cold case half of the book has already been read. As this is the beginning of a new series I think the back story could have waited to be fleshed out in subsequent books. Mystery readers will more than likely be eager to get to the whodunit rather than read about Izzy’s past.
I had some good laughs while reading the book and quite liked Izzy, but on the whole I think for this book to be successful as a mystery novel there really should been more emphasis on the mystery plot and less on the family’s zany life.
Added 06/07