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March 4, 2011
Rollicking fun mystery
Lisa Lutz’s second novel is as enjoyable as her first.
BARBARA HALPARIN
This is the continuation of a series coordinated by the Isaac Waldman library and the Independent, featuring community members reviewing books they’ve recently read.
Not since Howard Engel’s Benny Cooperman whodunit series will you romp through a mystery like Lisa Lutz’s Curse of the Spellmans, though not so much for the mystery (not so menacing), the prowess of the protagonist (she is equal parts bumble, street smarts and chutzpah) or as a test of your inner Sherlock. Brainiacs be warned: this one is for the pure glee of tracking the capers of one kooky bunch of snoops.
Like Cooperman, a nice Jewish private investigator whose mother would rather he not come home for Shabbat dinner, 28-year-old Isabel Spellman, PI, comes from a family straight out of Wackyville.
Her parents, Albert and Olivia, have a penchant for staging “disappearances” (Spellman for “vacation”). That is, when Albert is not in the middle of a REAFO (retirement-age freak-out) and Olivia is not sneaking off into the night to vandalize motorcycles. Isabel’s “freakishly attractive, intellectually superior and all-around charming” lawyer brother David is the presumed cause of Isabel’s radically challenging behavior. Her 15-year-old sister, Rae, sugar junkie and persistent practitioner of “recreational surveillance,” is the almost accidental murderer of her best friend. Together, they form Spellman Investigations, where a work ethic of electronic eavesdropping, breaking and entering, blackmail and vandalism is routinely imposed – on each other.
A miscellany of other characters is equally engaging and shrouded in secrets. Forty-something Inspector Henry Stone is as stuffed as a shirt can be, yet this almost-accidental-murder victim takes on Rae as his personal rescue project. Petra, once Isabel’s best friend and fellow delinquent, is now married to David – or is she? Former cop Bernie retains impromptu poker-party rights over the apartment he sublets to Isabel. The usually sanguine Milo, Isabel’s personal bartender at the Philosopher’s Club, has become inexplicably surly. And then there is the “Subject,” the compelling but enigmatic neighbor with the highly suspicious name of John Brown. His locked room and prolific paper shredding prove to be irresistible trouble magnets for Isabel.
The novel begins in medias res because, according to Isabel, “you only know there is a story when you get to the middle.” She has just been arrested for the fourth time (or the second, if you don’t count times two and three, which Isabel doesn’t) in two months. From here, the action moves quickly back and forth in time, capering from character to character, and situation to laugh-aloud situation. Isabel unravels the various plot lines by deftly invoking the tools of her trade: transcripts of illicitly recorded conversations, suspicious behavior reports, Subject movement accounts, records of various covert operations and strategy-planning sessions in the “law offices” (any place that serves a good pastrami sandwich) of Mort Schilling, Isabel’s octogenarian attorney.
By the time the final investigative report is filed, Henry has uncovered the truth about Brown, Rae has cracked the case of the snot-saving professor and David has embraced his inner debauch. Isabel has exposed the perps who have been replicating her feats of creative vandalism, deduced the nefarious purpose of Albert’s yoga mat and Olivia’s wrench, made four humble apologies and had her day in court.
Don’t wear out your magnifying glass looking for Jewish content in the world of Spellman. The most you will find is that Mort likes to “Yiddishify” Isabel’s name to Isele. At 489 pages, the reader is hardly shortchanged, but the fun continues with Lutz’s lavish use of paratext. The pages are peppered with footnotes, initially distracting but skilfully deployed signposts. An appendix details Isabel’s former boyfriends and Henry-approved conversation starters, among other goodies. Even “the acks” (acknowledgments) are entertaining, and mitigate the disappointment of coming down from a rollicking good time.
Curse of the Spellmans is Lutz’s second novel, following her opener, The Spellman Files. A third in the series, Revenge of the Spellmans, is currently available in hardcover. You can find it in the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library – as soon as I return my copy.
Barbara Halparin is currently an instructor at the Florence Melton Adult Mini School at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.
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