The Last Word: A Spellman Novel

Lutz delivers another rollicking good time in her sixth novel featuring the wacky San Francisco family of PIs (after 2012’s Trail of the Spellmans). Everyone in the Spellman clan is in an uproar because of Isabel’s hostile takeover of the firm. Izzy’s parents, Albert and Olivia, have taken up a passive-aggressive retaliation involving boxer shorts and plastic curlers, while her sister, Rae, has devised a new revenge-based income stream. Meanwhile, Izzy is helping client Edward Slayter hide his Alzheimer’s, but it’s clear someone is determined to get him kicked out as CEO of a very profitable venture capital firm, and that someone is willing to sic the FBI on Izzy for embezzlement as part of the scheme. Former boyfriend Henry Stone keeps showing up at peculiar times, and Izzy’s battles with her tyrannical three-year-old niece, Sydney (aka Princess Banana), are escalating. The hilarious office memos and footnotes add to the fun. Agent: Stephanie Rostan, Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. (July)