Therapy is off to a rough start for San Francisco P.I. Izzy Spellman: she doesn’t want to talk about her plans for the future, her current living arrangements, the fact that someone is blackmailing her, or the fact that the man she loves is getting serious with another woman. Truth be told, Izzy doesn’t want to talk to a therapist at all but she doesn’t have a choice: the therapy sessions are court-mandated.

Izzy may not want to talk but she still has questions. Her brother David is acting extremely un-Davidlike—again. And there’s the case she reluctantly accepted—while it appeared easy and straightforward at first, it’s proving to be just the opposite. To top everything off, Izzy is having trouble sleeping and she’s not sure if she’s just forgetting where she parked her car or if someone else is moving it to suit their own nefarious purposes.

Once again, I found myself laughing out loud—I adore the Spellmans. They are completely dysfunctional but in an endearing way and I love how they pull normal people into their wise-cracking, antic-filled lives and seemingly hold them hostage. This time around, Izzy’s parents send a spy to her new workplace, hoping to find out what her plans are—which then leads Izzy to suspect everyone of being a spy. Rae finally manages to alienate her best friend, Police Inspector Henry Stone, but surprisingly ingratiates herself with his District Attorney girlfriend. Izzy sends Petra to snoop on a P.I. competitor . . . and so on. In addition to the footnotes and appendix, we also have Izzy’s therapy transcripts to look forward to (with an exceptionally hilarious one at the end).

I’m looking forward to The Spellmans Strike Again with a touch of sadness: there are currently no other installments in the series. What will I read next???