The Spellmans Strike Again by Lisa Lutz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I can’t imagine that anyone who’s read The Spellman Files, Curse of the Spellmans, and Revenge of the Spellmans won’t wind up reading The Spellmans Strike Again. Nor can I imagine anyone deciding to start with this fourth novel before reading the others. So what they heck am I supposed to review here, exactly? Maybe someone’s considering the entire series and reading reviews to make sure the books don’t start great then go bad. Fine: that won’t happen. What you get out of the first novels you’ll get out if this one too.
Hijinks and such. The same mish-mash of intertwining plots that don’t really intertwine all that much. I’ll say this: Lisa made me feel some of Izzy’s emotions, especially frustration, more than before. I won’t give it away to people who haven’t read it, but: the file room incident? Morty? Yeah, I was more in touch with Isabel Spellman than in any of the previous novels.
Which makes me wonder what I’m going to get out of Spellman #5, which I’m hoping to start reading later today. And I WILL read it. But will Rae be in it (of course she will be). What about the Unit (they will be too—sometimes I think, as an author and therefor God of the Spellman fiction-verse, Lutz must somewhat identify with Olivia). Will Henry have more of a role?
I could go on, but the point is: questions to be answered in the next review. I hope. Or not.
If you take nothing else away from this “review” (finger quoted, Izzy, just for you) let it be this: read the first three books, and read this one too.