Dissection: The Spellmans Strike Again

In the spirit of full disclosure, Lisa Lutz is one of my favorite newer authors. Her latest release, The Spellmans Strike Again is evidence of why I love this author. With every book in the Spellman series, which also include: The Spellman Files, Curse of the Spellmans, and Revenge of the Spellmans, you get a treat in the form of the Spellman family. Quick overview: the main character in this series is Izzy (Isabel) Spellman. She is the middle child in a completely dysfunctional P.I. family. Former wild-child, by the time you meet her in the latest book, she's managed to become a relatively normal member of society, though no one in the Spellman family is ever "normal".

Also in the spirit of full disclosure, I should add for my more timid readers that these books have a lot of language in them, as well as some alcohol and drug use and/or references. I don't necessarily condone these actions, I would say that by the time the Spellmans strike again, this is radically toned down compared to the atmosphere in The Spellman Files. While this could be a reflection of changes in literary tastes, I would actually like to say it shows both a progression on the part of the author and of Isabel.

Quick overview: If you have ADD tendencies, you'll probably love the setup to all of the Spellman books. In the 3rd book, Revenge, Isabel agrees to begin taking over the family P.I. business from her parents. In Strike Again, things are progressing towards Izzy having the whole business, though it's still early in the process. What I love about how Lutz tells her stories is the fact that there are about 6 different threads going on all at once--and all from Izzy's point of view--that you get to keep track of. There's always a couple of mysteries, as is the case in this book, but usually what's more intriguing is what's going on with the Spellmans. For instance, why are house fixtures--light fixtures, door knobs, drawer pulls--disappearing from the Spellman home/offices? Why is Izzy's mom, Olivia, adamant about her dating a different lawyer every fortnight, despite Izzy's current relationship with her Irish bartender boyfriend? And, how far will Izzy's much younger sister, Rae, take her mission to free an innocent man from prison?


As usual, the mystery in this book takes a backseat to the personal goings-on of the Spellmans. However, because the Spellman's are P.I.'s, there is a mystery or two--though rarely is there ever a dead body. Initially, you start out believing there are three mysteries--which is a pretty high number, though probably not as much as what may be on the plate for your average P.I. Izzy's personal mission is to bring down rival P.I. Harkey, who she believes is shady, so this is mystery 1, and actually a holdover from the previous book. The second mystery is a new client who thinks his former partner is shopping around his screenplay to Hollywood people. And, the third mystery is the status of one of the Spellman's longest clients' missing personal valet. Two of these eventually merge into one, but I won't tell you which. :) While light on the mystery, they're well crafted and all three (two) have satisfying conclusions, at least from my vantage point.


The biggest reason I wanted to review this book and share it with my readers is the fact that the series is some of the most unusually styled books I've read in my life. The voice of Izzy is offbeat, at times snotty and immature (despite, by this book, the fact she's 32 years old), and completely endearing. While 80% of the novel reads like a regular novel, Izzy makes use of transcripts: tape recordings, generally of family conversations, but also of the lawyer dates her mother forces her into. I'm not sure if they're funnier because of the format, but they're generally laugh-til-you-cry funny. And, Ms. Lutz also uses footnotes--brief explanations of the possible deeper meaning of a comment, or referring you to the appendices (I think there've been up to four in one of the books; Strike Again has just one.) They also are used to direct you to past history in the "previous documents--now available in paperback!"


While I usually hate books that are too light on the mystery and too heavy elsewhere, these books actually are a mystery in and of themselves. Because the Spellmans will do surveillance on each other, there's usually a mystery surrounding the family as well. This adds to my previous statements of the style of the books.


I understand from her blog that Ms. Lutz will be taking time off from the Spellmans and working on other projects, so this book ties up the series nicely for the time being. While I hope that she comes back to this quirky family--and soon!--I feel that the characters are happy now (though Izzy must say goodbye to three of her friends near the end of the book, one due to death) and their lives are continuing on a good path, though I'm sure it's still zany.

What I've learned from this book (series): Quirky is good. You can come out of the box completely, have fun, but still be recognizable as a good work (which is pretty obvious since Lisa's work has hit the NYT bestseller list--Strike Again debuted in early April, tied for 16th place--and has been nominated for and won several awards.) Also, the stranger situations you put your characters into can make for highly entertaining books, which I think is key to the success Ms. Lutz has seen in the last few years.

If you haven't read the books yet, you can order The Spellmans Strike Again through Amazon.


Well, this is my last post for a few months. As you know by now, I'm expecting my second child in just a couple months. But, I have a wonderful series of guest bloggers lined up from now until September... and as soon as the baby's born, I'll try to see to it that a quick post goes up announcing its arrival. Please come and make my guest bloggers as welcome as you can, and I'll see you back here in September!

Until next time,

Special Announcement from Word Wanderings!

Good day! I'm sure that you've been wondering what this special announcement is all about...

Well, here it is!

Some of you may know that I'm pregnant with my second child. Well he or she (yes, we're being old fashioned) is due later this summer, and as such, I've decided that while I'm going to take break from blogging, I don't want Word Wanderings to die! As such, I've asked some of my writer friends to drop in starting in June to cover me while I have this baby, and get used to having a toddler and infant at home (and get my brain to return so I can begin writing again!)

Here is my projected schedule of guest bloggers.

June 14th: C. Maggie Woychik is the publisher and managing editor at the new small publishing house of Port Yonder Press (www.PortYonderPress.com), is author of "I Run to the Hills" and a soon-to-be-released writing memoir. She did an interview with me when her book was released last fall here.

June 28th: K.M. Weiland, author of Behold the Dawn and A Man Called Outlaw. Her blog is the wildly popular Wordplay and is also a co-founder of AuthorCulture with Lynette Bonner and Linda Yezak. She also did an interview here last fall with the release of Behold the Dawn. You can find her 2-part interview here and here.

July 12th: Victor Travison, author of The Justice Coalition and Savage Worlds. His blog is The Book Lightwalker Files. He participated in the 4-part roundtable this January on self-publishing. You can find the series here.

July 26th: Suzanne Hartmann, editor at Port Yonder as well as pre-published author of The Race That Lies Before Us. Her blog is Write at Home.

August 9th: Lorna Poston, a fellow Kansas Citian, she's a former editor with Port Yonder. Her blog is Myriad Musings.


August 23rd: Tony Lavoie, author of The Ballad of Scabbard Pete.

September 13th: Linda Yezak, pre-published author, she's also an editor in training at Port Yonder Press. She is co-blogger at AuthorCulture along with K.M. Weiland and Lynnette Bonner, and hosts her own blog at 777 Peppermint Place.


Also in there, I will be doing a book review of a devotional by Erin Coss, A Tidbit Romance, which will be released in July.

I hope by the middle of September, I'll be feeling more like myself and will back to blog and share some book dissections. If not, I may extend this list into October. I hope you'll enjoy all our guests and make them feel at home!

We'll have one more book dissection before I go on hiatus, then I hope you'll flood the comments for our guests!

Until next time,

Dissection: The Virgin of Small Plains

If I could just say one word about The Virgin of Small Plains: A Novel, I think it would be 'Wow!' Released in 2006 by Nancy Pickard, published by Ballentine Books, a division of Random House, I can easily see why this book spent some time on the New York Times bestseller list. It also won the following awards: Reader's Choice, Agatha, Macavity, A "Killer Book" (by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association), and Kansas Reads Book of the Year (2009); and was nominated for: the Edgar Award and the Dillys Award.

I happen to be lucky enough to have met Ms. Pickard several times in the last few years, including shortly after Virgin was released, however, it wasn't until this spring I picked up this book, though I'd read several of her popular Jenny Cain series over a decade ago. Ms. Pickard happens to be quite involved in one of the local Sisters in Crime chapters in Kansas City, and is a founding member of the organization, as well as a past president. That in and of itself should make the average mystery reader sit up and take note. However, I truly have to say that you are missing out if you don't take a chance and read this book--whether you love mysteries or not. For any writer, there are elements that can be learned.

First, an overview. This story is told from multiple 3rd persons views, and also utilizes multiple flashbacks to tell the story from 17 years prior. While I don't usually read this format, it's not unheard of, and I found it easy to keep up, though I was usually waiting none-too-patiently for either of who I felt were the three stars of the book: Abby, Mitch (who didn't really come on stage until past the 100 page mark, at least not in the more recent time frame), and Rex. In the 1986 & 1987 sequences, the three lead characters are teenagers. In 1987, Rex, his older brother, and father (the sheriff) discover a frozen, bloodied girl in their pasture during a major snowstorm.

Mitch, the same night, is with Abby, at her parents' house. While sneaking down to get 'protection' from Abby's dad's office (who's a doctor), Mitch sees the sheriff and Abby's dad mutilate the dead woman's face. The next morning, Mitch's mom and dad (a powerful judge) whisk him out of town, leaving Abby and the rest of his friends with no explanation. For the next 17 years, different theories in the town of Small Plains abound about what Mitch did that made him disappear so abruptly, especially since the Virgin (as the murdered girl is referred to) was found that same night.

Even Mitch doesn't know entirely why he was whisked away. Seventeen years later, after his mother died, Mitch decides to come back to put the past to rest. At the same time, Abby, who's overheard Rex's mother talking to 'The Virgin' about what had happened, gets curious and starts asking questions around town about what they remember about the time surrounding the discovery of the girl. Which, in my mind, juxtaposes Abby and Mitch perfectly to come together again.

What I loved:

This book is set in the fictional town of Small Plains, Kansas which sits in the fictional county of Muncie. However, I know pretty well where this is 'supposed' to be since I grew up not far from the towns and other counties that are actually there. Okay, Kansas-girl aside, I love the fact that this book is set in the Flint Hills of Kansas. Ms. Pickard beautifully describes the Hills--to the point that I could envision my many travels at dusk and dawn through them at various times of the year. It brought tears to my eyes more than once. Nancy makes the Hills a character in this book--from the snowstorms, to the gusty winds, to the violence of a tornado, as well as the history of the Kansa Indians that once roamed the area, chasing bison.

Small Plains reminds me a lot of the town I grew up in, though bigger. I loved that since I could identify so well with how everyone knows everyone else's business, yet some of the most important things are twisted forms of the truth, or nowhere near truth at all.

The human characters are as well drawn as the place in which they live. I loved Abby immediately--she is a lot like me in some ways, different in others, but I think I fell in love with her because she suffered so much when Mitch left, and never knew why he'd left her, why he never called or even wrote. I could identify with that, not so much because I've experienced that (I haven't), but because my own character, Amanda, suffered in a similar way when her fiancé died.

While I did like Abby the best, the other characters--good and bad--were well characterized. You immediately hate Nadine (Mitch's mom) when she tells Abby that Mitch left because of her--so he wouldn't be tethered to the small town because Abby got pregnant (which the couple hadn't ever had the opportunity to!) You're never quite sure what to make of Mitch's dad, and you're constantly kept on your toes about what the townsfolk know, what they're hiding, and what they suspect. Rex, who takes over as sheriff after his dad retires, it's slowly revealed knew the murdered victim, and you're never quite sure how much he knows about her until the very end of the book.

What I disliked:

I really can't think of anything I honestly didn't like about this book, except a few of the characters, or the fact it took so long for Abby and Mitch to get back together--or even see each other. The one thing I was disappointed in, and this is probably more me picking up on things a lot sooner than I used to, was I did finger the Virgin's murderer relatively early on, though there was enough doubt brought in after that I wasn't 100% certain all the time.

There was also a long series of scenes where a tornadic storm is approaching Small Plains. This is shown from multiple points of view. What made me dislike this series of scenes is that one scene with Mitch, prior to the storm, interrupts the series, and while what he does is important to the overall story, if it were me, I'd have moved this earlier in the book, then pick up with him again at the same point when the storm actually approaches and he first goes to see if Abby's place is okay (and subsequently, Abby), then goes into town to help the townsfolk he hasn't seen in almost two decades clean up from the damage.

The mystery:

The mystery in this book was well drawn out. Ms. Pickard does a fabulous job of giving you enough information in one scene to either have you completely off balance, not sure what's happening, or to have you thinking for sure that X is what's going on, but the next scene has you thinking it's Y. Enough of the backstory was sprinkled in over the course of the book that it left you second-guessing what was happening in the 2004 time-line.

Overall:

I'd heartily recommend this book to the mystery-lover and the non-mystery-lover alike. While it may not be for everyone, it's definitely engaging... and I could see it being made into a movie (please!--I know a few perfect little towns in the region that would be perfect to play Small Plains!)

What this book made me learn:

I think the most important thing I've learned from this book is how to utilize description effectively, but also to use setting effectively, to the point it can be its own character. (If memory serves, I believe Donald Maass' book that I reviewed in December used elements of Virgin to illustrate this very thing--reading the entire book only heightened my awareness.) While not all books are ideal for this, Virgin was and I truly felt that anyone who hadn't had the pleasure of visiting the Flint Hills region would be able to picture it. Infusing the love of the land was something that made the descriptions sing in this book.


If you haven't read Virgin yet, you can purchase a paperback at Amazon.com for $10.54 The Virgin of Small Plains: A Novel

Our next book dissection will be our last until fall. We'll be looking at Lisa Lutz's new release, The Spellmans Strike Again. Warning, this book is NOT for the faint of heart!

Until next time,