A follow-up to The Spellman Files finds Izzy struggling to retain her private investigator's license after a pseudo engagement and her fourth arrest, a challenge that is further complicated by David's marriage to Petra and Rae's teenage angst. 150,000 first printing. Lisa Lutz, author of The Spellman Files , is back with another story of the shenanigans of the Spellman family: The Curse of the Spellmans . The "parental unit" started a private investigation business when Dad retired from police work. His wife assists him and their two daughters, Isabel, (Izzy) a 30-year-old with a habit of being arrested, and Rae, a 15-year-old Cheetos-loving teen, would like to think that they help out in the family business. Especially where Izzy is concerned, this is a stretch. Brother David is a successful attorney who has nothing to do with the family enterprise. He has troubles of his own. Izzy has been living in the apartment of a friend while he is away. When he returns unexpectedly, it quickly becomes clear that being roommates with an old, cigar-smoking, poker-playing, big drinker isn't going to work. Izzy moves home temporarily and then the fun begins. She decides that their new next door neighbor, John Brown, whose landscape gardening business she judges to be a cover, is somehow making women disappear. She gets herself invited to dinner, discovers a locked room, believes his name is phony, follows him everywhere, has a restraining order against her, and still she can't let it go. Meanwhile, Rae has befriended a great guy, a cop named Henry Stone, who is almost too good to be true. The reader starts pulling for him and Izzy to get together right away, even though he doesn't deserve the aggravation. Lutz keeps the ball rolling faster and faster with David's problems, her parents' frequent vacations, which they refer to as "disappearances," and the fact that everyone in the family has secrets from one another. If there is any curse at work here, it is that all the family members are terminally nosy. What they discover about each other and the other players keeps you turning pages and hoping that Lutz is hard at work on the next installment of this zany family's misadventures. --Valerie Ryan If sassy Jersey sleuth Stephanie Plum had a wacky cousin in San Francisco, it might be Izzy Spellman, the heroine of Lutz’s witty series. In this second offering (after The Spellman Files, 2007), Izzy, a reluctant member of the family’s detective business, is having the usual troubles with her kin. Her father seems in the midst of another REAFO (retirement age “freak-out,” not to be confused with MILFO, the midlife version); her mother has been leaving the house in the wee hours to puncture some poor soul’s motorcycle tires; and her teenage half sister, Rae, just accidentally drove over Izzy’s much older detective inspector pal, Henry. Then there’s new neighbor John Brown, a handsome if somewhat shifty gardener who has Izzy experiencing equal parts suspicion and lust. Lutz’s novel reads like a series of humorous vignettes, with provocative titles like “My Almost Fake Drug Deal #2.” While mystery purists may prefer a more fast-paced narrative, Lutz is an excellent choice for readers in the market for steady laughs and a smattering of suspense. --Allison Block Lisa Lutz is the author of The New York Times bestselling, Edgar- and Macavity-nominated, and Alice Award-winning Spellman Series. She is most recently the author of Heads You Lose , written with David Hayward, and lives and works in California.