Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Trail of the Spellmans

Trail of the Spellmans (The Spellmans, #5)Trail of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Why are Rae and David Spellman not on speaking terms? Why is Mom throwing herself into numerous hobbies? What is the link between the case Izzy is working and the one dear old Dad has his hooks in? All these questions and more will be answered in Trail of the Spellmans!

My all time favorite dysfunctional family of detectives is back in a fifth installment and I'm glad to say the level of quality hasn't diminished.

In this outing, Lisa Lutz throws a few new characters into the mix. There's the infant Spellman, Sydney, Demetrius, the wrongfully convicted man Izzy helped free in the last book, and a geriatric Spellman that I don't think was every mentioned before. In addition, old favorites like Bernie and Henry Stone also have roles.

One thing I love about the Spellman series is that the titular characters aren't stagnant. They're all growing and getting older as the series progresses. David is married with a child, Rae is quickly approaching 21, and the parents are nearing retirement age. Izzy makes some changes in this volume as well, some for the good, some for ill, and one change that made me close my Kindle for a few minutes.

As always, it was amazing watching the various plots converge. Lisa Lutz is one of the few authors that manages to surprise me a couple times in each book. I don't really know what else to say. It's a Spellman book so if you've read and enjoyed the previous four, this one should be a no brainer.

The only bad thing about this series is that there's only one more volume in existence. 4 out of 5 stars.

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