Izzy’s hobby is shown to be the evaluation of potential boyfriends and making up reasons for breaking current relationships. For instance, she gets into buildings through windows during her investigations and also while trying to escape he parents’ surveillance (Lutz 33). Izzy portrays unusual behavior in her quest for independence and privacy. This is among the reasons why her parents’ constant surveillance of her. She abuses alcohol and drugs and indulges herself in vandalism. Izzy knows that she cannot attain the level of her elder brother and thus she decides to be bad. Izzy’s character is substantially influenced by her older brother who is depicted as being principled and successful. He is said to have “… escaped family business by becoming a lawyer …” (Lutz 17). It is only her brother, David, who does not have a passion for surveillance. Being her employers, they also monitor her work closely. Her father, Albert, and her mother, Olivia, keep Izzy under 24-hour surveillance to monitor her sexual relationships. Rae starts working in her parents’ firm at the tender age of eight years. Her fourteen-year-old sister, Rae, is said to enjoy recreation surveillance- spying on people’s private lives for fun. She also closely monitors her uncle, Ray, who usually enjoys “lost weekends” (Lutz 21) – drinking and gambling sprees in the company of loose women. “You would have been twelve?” (Lutz 93), inspector Henry Stone gets surprised that she started working in her parents’ firm at such a young age. She started working in her parents’ firm at the age of twelve years. Isabel (Izzy) is a licensed private investigator working in her family’s firm.

The Spellman family, having a surveillance family firm- Spellman Investigations, is addicted to the invasion of other people’s privacy and surveillance.

The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz