REVIEWED BY SUE CORBETT
FICTION
If Isabel Spellman, 28, didn't say her parents were San Francisco private investigators, we would guess she was the love child of Dirty Harry and Harriet the Spy. A hard-drinking, fashion-challenged screw-up with a jones for Get Smart reruns and a talent for tailing people, Izzy works in the family business but can't escape scrutiny of her own private life since nothing she does goes unnoticed. (Her family's motto? Surveillance begins at home.) To that end, Izzy's parents don't just Google every boy she dates—they run criminal background checks.
Nominally, the plot churns on Izzy's work deconstructing two missing person cases (one of the MIAs is her little sister Rae, a juvenile delinquent-in-progress)—investigations that cause her to question just how much family dysfunction she can tolerate. It's not the mystery of how these cases ultimately resolve that will pull readers through, but the whip-smart sass of the story's heroine, ace detective of her own heart.
