Trail of the Spellmans (The Spellmans, #5) in Ask Lisa Lutz!

Mar 11, 2011 Jennifer rated it liked it

I gave the first 4 books 5-stars but this gets 3-stars. And I'm not only rating this on the incredibly upsetting event. Although that was ridiculously awful! I didn't read four books where I felt like I was climbing Mt. Everest to only barely reach the top in the fifth book and then be thrown off the cliff before I can even take a look around! I was also very disappointed by all the characters. No Henry/Rae scenes. No Henry anything basically! His character was wasted in this installment. There ...more

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Jan 31, 2012 Diane Wilkes rated it really liked it

Why is Olivia Spellman becoming enmeshed in so many hobbies that keep her outside the home? Why is Albert Spellman putting up a Chinese Wall complete with a computer firewall? Why did David Spellman kick his sister Rae out of the house? And why is Izzy avoiding her sig other, Henry Stone, so assiduously?

All of these questions are answered--some sooner, some later--in Trail of the Spellmans, the fifth installment of The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz. Some things have changed. Demetrius Merriweather ...more

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Nov 15, 2011 Elizabeth (Miss Eliza) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mystery, spellmans, san_francisco, ze_2011_challenge_mystery-suspense

Izzy Spellman's life is for the first time ever on an even keel. She's living with her boyfriend, Henry Stone, and is even drinking buddies with his mother Gertrude. Work is even steady at Spellman Investigations, with the added benefit of having a new co-worker, the wrongfully convicted Demetrius Merryweather whose freedom is down to Izzy and her family. He even is an awesome cook, so there's more reasons to swing by Clay Street than ever before. Yet while Izzy is more normal, her family is beh Izzy Spellman's life is for the first time ever on an even keel. She's living with her boyfriend, Henry Stone, and is even drinking buddies with his mother Gertrude. Work is even steady at Spellman Investigations, with the added benefit of having a new co-worker, the wrongfully convicted Demetrius Merryweather whose freedom is down to Izzy and her family. He even is an awesome cook, so there's more reasons to swing by Clay Street than ever before. Yet while Izzy is more normal, her family is behaving stranger than ever. Her mother has every second of every day accounted for with as many "enrichment" classes as she can get... one of them is learning Russian, yet she's not getting any better. David and Rae have started some sort of blood feud and it maybe has to deal with the fact that David's new daughter Sydney hates bananas, yet is always saying that word. Her father is also being belligerent about their caseload dealing with a married couple when it turns out that Izzy was hired by the wife and her father by the husband. They reach an impasse and the fact that her father is withholding evidence that could clear everything up drives Izzy a little crazy. Yet the arrival of Grandma Spellman may just up the crazy to the point of unbearable.

If you haven't noticed by now I'll fill you in on a secret. When naming her books Lisa was looking for a good naming convention and she figured you couldn't go very wrong with going for a tried and true system. Otherwise known as the Pink Panther oeuvre. Therefore I feel safe in the knowledge that we'll get a few more books still, she has more titles to choose from. Also, she was lucky enough to pick a naming convention unlike Charlaine Harris, who is stuck with "dead" or Deanna Raybourn who is stuck with "silent" or some equally ludicrous naming convention like letters of the alphabet or numbers with a qualifier before it. But back to the book. So, Trail of the Spellmans is named after the sixth Pink Panther film, the one notable for the fact that it was a Peter Sellers film made after the star had been dead two years, so was therefore made up of bits and pieces that where cut from the previous films. This lead to a very uneven film.

Taking this analogy to the book, it started out very uneven, you are uncertain if a plot will ever coalesce, with lots of different cases, a daughter being followed, a husband and wife who are trailing each other. All very disparate cases, much like the disparate plot points of the likewise titled movie. Only Lisa easily succeeded when the movie was unable (ie, their star is dead), in placing the parts into a whole. It's the slow connections, the little cogs all fitting together to form this machine that kept the plot moving more than one specific intrigue.

I was very happy that the mystery part was well thought out and executed because otherwise the book might have let me down. While the Spellmans as a whole are just as kooky as ever, the maturing of Rae and Izzy has led to a hole I feel in me. They have both grown up and in the past it has been their behaviour, or lack of proper behavior I should say, that has driven the plot. Gone are the days where Izzy is sneaky into David's downstairs apartment. Rae is busy with school and actually starting a life independent of her family versus blackmailing them. And Henry and Izzy... well, I won't go there, it's still to raw. This series seems to be in transition. Will it strike out and become more traditional crime solving, or will it adhere to the slightly bizarre and humorous dynamic that drew me to it in the first place? Only the future will tell... but I must pose the question, is growing up sometimes not a good thing? ...more

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Mar 02, 2012 Sandi rated it liked it

I didn't see this mediocre offering coming at all. There seemed to be no focused storyline, just a mish-mash of ideas thrown together. Henry Stone, one of the major characters from books 1-4, is rendered meaningless, and the other main characters (Al, Olivia, and even Rae) don't have much of anything interesting to do.

I was terribly disappointed by this latest installment. Please, dear author, get it together and make book 6, if there is one, all that this one was not. ...more

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Feb 24, 2012 Meredith rated it it was amazing

Installment #5 of the Spellman's is of course hilarious, as expected. I almost feel like I know these characters. Lisa Lutz does a great job of continuing their story and keeping it fresh and interesting. You would think it would get tiresome to read about the same family but she can go on and on.. it doesn't get old because she's clearly a witty lady. Hope to see #6 soon! ...more

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Mar 18, 2012 Gwen rated it really liked it

Shelves: policier-thriller, jeunesse

Que dire sans rien révéler ?!?!
4étoiles car Izzy/Isabel (par le biais de la plume de l'auteur) fait quelque chose et je ne suis pas d'accord !!!
"Pas possible, non, pourquoi ???!!!, ca va s'arranger !, OMD...." Tous les petits mots qui m'ont traversé l'esprit lorsque cela arrive et après.....

J'espère qu'il y aura un tome 6 !!!! Et qu'il arrivera rapidement !
Sinon c'est toujours le même humour, une famille toujours aussi déjantée, certains change en plus ou moins bien, certains murissent, d'autre ...more

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Nov 23, 2011 Julia Fandechicklit rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The fifth installment in the Spellman series is, unsurprisingly, every bit as good as the others. The PI family finds its members gradually gaining independence from each other. Still every bit as funny and quirky, I did find the tone slightly darker this time around. Will not get into details so as not to spoil anyone, but this was a fun, entertaining read which made me, as ever, want to reread the previous books. Congratulations to Lisa for coming up with this great series and keeping us wanti ...more

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Apr 21, 2011 Rhonda rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, humor, series-read, favorite-author, read-in-2013

This was a pretty good book, she always keeps me laughing. It did take me awhile to get my hands on this book so I sort of forgot what I read in the previous book, but it came back quickly.
This. Is a book that you really need to read in the series order, you will miss a lot if you don't follow the order.
Lisa is a true comedic genius in my opinion. I love her sarcastic wit.. ...more

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Jan 08, 2012 Jody rated it liked it

I love Lisa Lutz's writing. I love the Spellmans. I did not love #5. I liked it but I felt like the series has been building - each one better than the next. I liked #4 better so this was a bit of a disappointment but it was still highly entertaining. ...more

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Dec 14, 2011 Cathy rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery, series, just-for-fun

Another Spellman winner! Good to see the Spellmans grow - a little, we wouldn't want them to be too grown-up and reasonable - it would ruin their charm. I have loved all the books in this series and this one is no exception. Can't wait for the next one! ...more

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