Izzy Spellman and her two siblings are raised from a young age to snoop for their parents' detective agency. Years later, the family continues a pattern of secrecy and investigation of anyone in their lives—and each other. Izzy, the main character of Lisa Lutz's hilarious debut novel, The Spellman Files (S&S, March 2007), now a 28-year-old employee of her parents' agency, is a smart and funny but difficult character: she can't seem to keep from lying and dispels conflict with caustic humor. She still lives at home with her eccentric but lovable family. Her romantic life is a failure (she lists her ex-boyfriends, one to eight). On a surveillance she falls for a dentist ("All I was thinking was, Could this be Ex-boyfriend #9?"), and not wanting him to know her profession or meet her family, she launches yet another deception. This refreshing new author had me laughing out loud at the clever dialogue and wonderful characters. What enormous fun this was!