RogerBW's Blog

The Last Word, Lisa Lutz 26 October 2022

2013 mystery-adjacent; sixth and last in the Spellmans series. Izzy took over the family private investigation company, but that doesn't mean her parents are happy with it. Oh, and someone seems to be trying to set her up for an embezzlement charge. Vt Spellman Six: The Next Generation.

In fact everything seems to be going downhill at the same time, for no obvious reason. Why should all these problems crop up at once? Just to make the book more interesting? Yes, I know it happens, but this is fiction and it feels as though it should have a reason to happen beyond the author's thumb on the scales.

Also, perhaps I've just burned out on these broken people who will do pretty much anything other than have a straightforward conversation with each other to work out their problems. Much as in real life, they can be fun for a brief visit, but one wouldn't want to live with them, and I ended up reading books 2-6 of the series all in this year, rather than one per year as they were written.

Isabel has indeed grown up a bit since book one, but she's also lost her edge; this time she's much more put-upon, and trying to get out of her various problems, than causing problems for other people. Which would put her more in the mainstream of female-PI stories, except that these books aren't really about the investigation so that's missing too. Can't she get more mature but still retain her sense of fun? (There may be some personal bias here; I've never subscribed to the idea that one must dump everything one enjoyed from childhood when one becomes an adult, and have only socially acceptable interests instead.)

Books 1-4 are escapist enjoyment. Books 5-6, to me at least, feel drab and supernumerary.

Lutz has written other books since this series ended, and I may well give them a look, but I think she's said all she had to say about these people, and alas carried on for a bit longer after that.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Previous in series: Trail of the Spellmans | Series: The Spellmans

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1