Lisa Lutz is an American author. She began her career writing screenplays for Hollywood. One of her rejected screenplays became the basis for a popular series of novels about a family of private investigators, the Spellmans. Lutz was born in Southern California in 1970. She attended UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine, University of Leeds in England and San Francisco State University, all without attaining a degree. During the 1990s she had many low-paying jobs, including work in a private investigation firm, and spent a lot of time writing and re-writing a Mob comedy called Plan B. Her screenplay was optioned in 1997, and was made into a movie in 2000 (released in 2001). Variety Magazine described the movie as "torturously unfunny. She subsequently produced several other tentative screenplays, but none was picked up. Her final effort, tentatively titled "The Spellman Files", was also rejected. At that point Lutz realized that "the story really needed more space to be told properly." She decided to write it as a novel. She began the novel while still living in California in 2004, then decided to move into a relative's family vacation home in upstate New York to work on it full-time. She returned to the west coast (Seattle) to write her second Spellman novel, then moved to San Francisco, where she lived until 2012. She presently lives miles from civilization in upstate New York.
My Opinion: I stumbled on this author while browsing through a list of new books at the library. After reading 1 of the Spellman series I was hooked and read all that were published at that time. I forgot about her until coming across "How to Start a Fire" in September, 2015. I just finished reading that book and I'm not at all sure how to describe it. It's certainly not a typical mystery but is a story of 20-30 years in the lives of 3 women who are certainly unique...or maybe not. It kept me interested because I wanted to finish it. I' not sure it came to any conclusion. You will have to read it for yourself. I intend to read the other Spellman books that I haven't read. They are funny but more than just that.
The Passenger is excellent but different.
The Spellman Files (2007) x
Curse of the Spellmans (2008) x
Revenge of the Spellmans (2009) x
The Spellmans Strike Again (2010) x
Heads You Lose (with David Hayward) (2011) x
Trail of the Spellmans (2012) X
The Last Word, later published as "Spellman Six: The Next Generation" (2013)
How to Start a Fire (2015) X
The Passenger X
The Swallows 1/20
If you would like to know more about this author, go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Lutz