Seven Up - Janet Evanovich

   2001; 337 pages.  Book 7 (out of 28) in the “Stephanie Plum” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Crime–Humor; Women Sleuths; Beach Novel.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    Much to bounty-hunter Stephanie Plum’s chagrin, the half-blind old geezer Eddie DeChooch is proving quite difficult to bring in due to his FTA (“Failure To Appear”) court date summons.

 

    Oh, he’s easy enough to find.  He spends most of his time at home, although he also often attends social events, including viewings for deceased fellow-geezers at the local funeral home.  But finding him is one thing, cuffing him and getting him back to Cousin Vinnie’s Bail Bond Agency is quite another.  Eddie DeChooch is one slippery fellow.

 

    Maybe it’s because he’s depressed.  His last cigarette-smuggling caper got busted which had to make somebody in the local underworld very unhappy.  Maybe it’s his health problems.  His eyes need fixing, he’s got a bum prostrate, and his feet get cold.  It's no wonder that all he does is hang out at his house anymore.

 

    Most likely it’s that corpse in his backyard shed.  You know, the one belonging to that spinster Loretta Ricci.  The one with five bullet holes in its chest.

 

What’s To Like...

    Seven Up is another delightful tale in Janet Evanovich’s ultra-popular “Stephanie Plum” series.  So far I’ve been reading these in order, although I am getting the feeling that it isn’t necessary to do so.  All my favorite characters are back, including Lula, Stephanie’s mouthy sidekick; feisty Grandma Mazur, who goes for her first ride on a Harley here; and Mooner, who can be talked into just about anything by dangling a joint in front of him.  Also back are the two studs Ranger and Joe Morelli, both of whom give Stephanie the hots, and one of which she’s engaged to be married.

 

    There are some new faces to boot.  Stephanie’s sister Valerie, a “perfect daughter” according to their mom and therefore a polar opposite of Steph, moves back home, her marriage broken, with her two daughters in tow, one of whom, Mary Alice, is convinced she’s a horse.

 

    There are a plethora of plotlines to keep both the reader and Stephanie occupied, including trying to convince Eddie to give himself up, and finding out why someone would shoot five holes in Loretta Ricci’s corpse AFTER she'd already died from a heart attack.  Various characters go missing and/or get shot, there are wedding arrangements to be made, and of course big sister Valerie needs help coping with her midlife crisis.  Finally, there's the BIG question: who stole the pot roast, and why?

 

    The pacing is brisk, there's action aplenty, and Janet Evanovich's writing is as always, wonderfully witty.  This isn’t really a whodunit – technically Stephanie’s job is to bring Eddie DeChooch and other FTA’s in for rescheduling their court appearances and let the crime-solving to the Trenton Police Department.  But it’s fun to tag along with Stephanie and Lula because you know they’ll stumble into, and somehow help solve, those various crimes and disappearances anyway.  Who knows, they might even run across a clue after accidentally getting drawn into a mud-wrestling match.

 

    Everything leads up to a satisfying ending.  There’s a twist or two to keep you and Stephanie on your toes, and by the end all the criminal plotlines are tied up.  Justice is served, and things are once again well at cousin Vinnie's bail bond agency.  Now if only Stephanie could untangle her pesky love-life tangles.

 

Excerpts...

    “I got a job for you,” Vinnie said.  “I want you to find that rat fink Eddie DeChooch, and I want you to drag his bony ass back here.  He got tagged smuggling a truckload of bootleg cigarettes up from Virginia and he missed his court date.”

    I rolled my eyes so far into the top of my head I could see hair growing.  “I’m not going after Eddie DeChooch.  He’s old, and he kills people, and he’s dating my grandmother.”

    “He hardly ever kills people anymore,” Vinnie said.  “He has cataracts.  Last time he tried to shoot someone he emptied a clip in to an ironing board.”  (pg. 5)

 

    Valerie has always been coordinated.  Her shoes and her handbags always match.  Her skirts and shirts match, too.  And Valerie can actually wear a scarf without looking like an idiot.

    Five minutes later, Valerie had me completely outfitted.  The skirt was mauve and lime green, patterned with pink and yellow lilies.  The material was diaphanous and the hemline hit midcalf.  Probably looked great on my sister in L.A., but I felt like a seventies shower curtain.  (pg. 139)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Johnson (n.) : (slang, vulgar) a penis.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 2,300 ratings and 821 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.14*/5, based on 122,016 ratings and 2,280 reviews.

 

“Holy crap. (…) You shot Jesus.  That’s gonna take a lot of Hail Marys.”  (pg. 105)

    It’s difficult to find anything to carp about in Seven Up.  If you’re keeping tally of “vehicles wrecked” and “bodies uncovered” by Stephanie, as Wikipedia does, here the total in one each.  That’s comparatively tame for her.

 

    And although I’d classify this as a “cozy crime-mystery”, it does contain a moderate amount of cussing, in this case 20 instances over the first quarter of the book.  There’s a nice diversity in those cusswords, with variations of “damn” and excrement expletives leading the way, but with the f-bomb occasionally showing up.

 

    Lastly and leastly, Stephanie’s taste in food has to be criticized.  One of her favorite snacks is  a “peanut-butter-and-olive sandwich”.  I got slightly sick just typing that.

 

    But those nitpicks pale compared to just how much of a light, quick, and fun read this was.  I'm a quarter of the way through this 28-book series, and I’ve yet to be disappointed.  Or, as Lula is prone to say, “Damn skippy!”

 

    9 Stars.