From the award-winning author of The Accomplice and The Passenger comes the first novel in the hilarious Spellman Files mystery series featuring Isabel “Izzy” Spellman (part Nancy Drew, part Dirty Harry) and her highly functioning yet supremely dysfunctional family of private investigators. 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. 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. "Fast-paced, irreverent, and very funny, The Spellman Files is like Harriet the Spy for grown-ups." -- Curtis Sittenfeld, author of The Man of My Dreams and Prep "Hilarious. My enjoyment of The Spellman Files was only slightly undercut by my irritation that I hadn't written it myself. The funniest book I've read in years!" -- Lauren Weisberger, author of The Devil Wears Prada and Everyone Worth Knowing " The Spellman Files is hilarious, outrageous, and hip. Izzy Spellman, P.I., is a total original, with a voice so fresh and real, you want more, more, more. At long last, we know what Nancy Drew would have been like had she come from a family of lovable crackpots. Lisa Lutz has created a delicious comedy with skill and truth. I loved it." -- Adriana Trigiani, author of Lucia, Lucia and Big Stone Gap "A spirited, funny debut...a rush of humor and chaos...casual, swift, and hip...A fresh story that works real issues through an offbeat premise." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Lisa Lutz is the New York Times bestselling, Alex Award–winning author of the Spellman Files series, as well as the novels The Accomplice , Heads You Lose (with David Hayward), How to Start a Fire, The Passenger , and The Swallows . She has also written for film and TV, including HBO’s The Deuce . She lives in upstate New York. THE INTERVIEW Chapter 1 Seventy-two Hours Later A single lightbulb hangs from the ceiling, its dull glow illuminating the spare decor of this windowless room. I could itemize its contents with my eyes closed: one wooden table, splintered and paint-chipped, surrounded by four rickety chairs; a rotary phone; an old television; and a VCR. I know this room well. Hours of my childhood I lost in here, answering for crimes I probably did commit. But I sit here now answering to a man I have never seen before, for a crime that is still unknown, a crime that I am too afraid to even consider. Inspector Henry Stone sits across from me. He places a tape recorder in the center of the table and switches it on. I can't get a good read on him: early forties, short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, crisp white shirt, and a perfectly tasteful tie. He might be handsome, but his cold professionalism feels like a mask. His suit seems too pricey for a civil servant and makes me suspicious. But everyone makes me suspicious. "Please state your name and address for the record," says the inspector. "Isabel Spellman. Seventeen ninety-nine Clay Street, San Francisco, California." "Please state your age and date of birth." "I'm twenty-eight. Born April 1, 1978." "Your parents are Albert and Olivia Spellman, is that correct?" "Yes." "You have two siblings: David Spellman, thirty, and Rae Spellman, fourteen. Is that correct?" "Yes." "Please state your occupation and current employer for the record." "I am a licensed private investigator with Spellman Investigations, my parents' PI firm." "When did you first begin working for Spellman Investigations?" Stone asks. "About sixteen years ago." Stone cons