The Spellman files - Lisa Lutz

Izzy Spellman is 28, single, lives in the attic of her parents' San Francisco home, and works for Spellman Investigations - a family-run business specialising in surveillance, tactical vehicular pursuit, artful coercion and what might be unkindly termed a general invasion of privacy. To be a Spellman is to snoop on a Spellman, tail a Spellman, dig up dirt on, blackmail and wiretap a Spellman. Nobody's safe - not Izzy's beautiful mother, not her ex-cop father, not her perfect older brother, not her wildly determined younger sister, not her dissolute uncle. And certainly not Izzy. Still, it takes a special transgression to make Izzy want to quit the business, and an equally special arrangement before her parents will release her from her contract. Suspenseful, sharply funny and achingly bitter-sweet, THE SPELLMAN FILES explores the agonising and hilarious dilemmas of a 28-year-old daughter trying to break free of a family with more than the usual means of sabotage at their disposal.