Ten Big Ones - Janet Evanovich

   2004; 319 pages.  Book 10 (out of 31) in the “Stephanie Plum” series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Crime-Humor; Women Sleuths; Beach Read.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    There’s a psycho running amok in Trenton, New Jersey.  He calls himself the “Red Devil” and has held up fourteen of the city’s deli-marts.  First he robs them, then as he exits, he tosses a Molotov cocktail into the store.  Instant conflagration.

 

    Stephanie Plum accidentally interrupted his routine during his latest heist.  He got a flat tire out of it; she got a burned-to-the-ground car.  But Stephanie caught a glimpse of his face and, though it wasn’t anyone she recognized, she’d know him if she saw him again.

 

    Which, of course happened a short time later.  Unfortunately, the Red Devil also recognized her, and understood the threat when Stephanie yelled, “Hey!  Wait a minute.  I want to talk to you.”  A chaotic chase ensued, with the Red Devil getting away.

 

    It’s kind of weird when a bounty hunter and a pyromaniac robber are both driving around Trenton, teach trying to spot the other.

 

What’s To Like...

    Unsurprisingly, the Red Devil/Stephanie plotline quickly becomes more tangled.  A local gang, the Slayers, gets involved.  Then a contract killer arrives from California with a list of people he’s being paid to dispose of, and Stephanie’s one of them.

 

    Stephanie’s personal life is getting more complicated as well.  Her sister Valerie, to whom she’s lent her apartment, still hasn’t gotten a place of her own, and Stephanie’s current living situation—shacking up with her cop boyfriend, Joe Morelli—is making her feel cramped.  Her subsequent housing solution stirs things up still further.

 

    The gangs, hitmen, psycho store-robbers, and relationship issues give this book a darker-than-normal tone for a Stephanie Plum novel.  Things turn even darker when Steph and friends decide to kidnap a baddie and beat some information out of him.

 

    Fortunately, Janet Evanovich balances all this with some lighter elements.  Mary Alice still thinks she’s a horse, Grandma Mazur and Lula provide comedic embarrassment, and a new character, Sally, shows up sporting something called a “swear band”.

 

    Everything builds to an exciting, over-the-top, and nail-biting ending.  Help arrives from an unexpected source just in the nick of time.  All the “Bounty Hunter” plot threads are tied up, and all the “Love Triangle” plot threads remain enticingly unresolved.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 7,994 ratings and 994 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.15/5 based on 105,382 ratings and 2,568 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “This wasn’t one of my better days,” I said to Morelli.  “My car was destroyed, I was involved in a shooting, and I just sat through a dinner from hell.”

    Morelli slung an arm around me.  “Dinner wasn’t that bad.”

    “My sister talked cuddle umpkins to Kloughn for two hours, my mother and grandmother cried every time someone mentioned the wedding, Mary Alice whinnied nonstop, and the baby threw up on you.”

    “Yeah, but aside from that. . .”

    “Not to mention, Grandma got completely snookered and passed out at the table.”

    “She was the smart one,” Morelli said.  (pg. 47)

 

    “And I suppose it’s okay for you to go after him?” I said to Morelli.

    “I’m a cop.  We go after criminals.  That’s why you called me, right?”

    “And I’m a fugitive apprehension agent.”

    “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Morelli said, “but you’re not a great apprehension agent.”

    “I get the job done.”

    “You’re a magnet for disaster.”  (pg. 180)

 

“I know a doughnut butt when I see one.”  (pg. 184)

    The profanity level in Ten Big Ones, was about normal.  I noted twenty cusswords in the first 10% of the book, which included a half-dozen f-bombs.  References to adult situations, adult toys, and anatomical organs show up later on.  This is the norm for this series.   And we won't even mention the charming transvestite character.

 

    As mentioned, the ending is exciting, but it also felt a bit hurried and too convenient.  That’s okay, though, there’s simply no way to portray a street gang in a light-hearted manner and still make them believably threatening.

 

    Ten Big Ones is another solid entry in the Stephanie Plum adventures.  If you’re looking for a series that’s funny, thrilling, heartwarming, romantic, quirky, and twisty, I highly recommend giving this bounty hunter a try.

 

    8½ Stars.  One last thing.  For those who keep count of these things:  Total cars trashed by Steph: One.  Total FTA’s rebooked by Steph: Seven.  Our protagonist is becoming an ace bounty hunter.

To The Nines - Janet Evanovich

   2003; 372 pages.  Book 9 (out of 30) in the “Stephanie Plum” series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Crime-Humor; Women Sleuths; Beach Read.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    Stephanie Plum and Lula have a new assignment.  Track down a missing FTA (“Failure To Appear”) kid named Samuel Singh and bring him in.

 

    This is a top-priority case.  So says Stephanie’s cousin Vinnie, who’s her boss and owner of Vincent Plum’s Bail Bonds.  It turns out Vinnie wrote something called a “visa bond” for Samuel, and if the missing-and-presumed-runaway fugitive can’t be found, Vinnie will lose a lot of money and credibility. Unsurprisingly, he’s very insistent that Singh be found immediately, if not sooner.

 

    Mrs. Apusenja and her daughter Nonnie feel the same way.  Samuel rents a room from the mom, and is betrothed to enter into an arranged marriage with the daughter.  Nobody walks out on something Mrs. Apusenja has arranged.

 

    Nonnie of course also wants her future husband found.  But funnily enough, she seems more concerned about her pet dog, “Boo”.  It seems the pup went missing from their yard the same day Samuel disappeared.

 

    Maybe they ran off together.

 

What’s To Like...

    To The Nines follows the standard plot structure for a Stephanie Plum novel, and that’s a plus, not a minus.  The simple catch-&-cuff task quickly gets more complex.  Various parties-of-interest drop dead, cold cases get warmer, and suspects pop up all over the place.  Stephanie starts receiving flowers from an admirer who wants to kill her, not romance her.  And as if Stephanie doesn't have enough to think about, the Ranger-Morelli-Plum love triangle is alive and cooking.

 

    The story is told in the first-person POV (Stephanie’s), and for the most part is set in the Trenton, New Jersey area, plus a quick trip out to Las Vegas by Steph and Lula, the expenses of which can happily can be written off as a trip and picked up by Vinnie,

 

    To The Nines was published in 2003, when 9/11 was a recent occurrence and the airports were struggling with security protocol.  Watching Lula’s misadventures with airport security was hilarious, but also brought back personal memories of business trips during that time.  To boot, Samuel Singh worked in a QC lab; that was my career as well.  Other “signs of the times” included Stephanie using AOL as her e-mail carrier, and Magic The Gathering being all the rage.

 

    There’s action aplenty and it starts right away.  We join Lula and Stephanie as they attempt to capture an FTA named Punky Balog, who has a unique way of showing his disdain for their presence.  Janet Evanovich’s trademark wit and humor is present in abundance, as are Stephanie’s musings about her complicated feelings for Joe Morelli and Ranger.  The mention of the I-40 Interstate resonated with me; I’ve driven it a couple of times over the last couple of years.  And the implication that Scottsdale, Arizona was an awful place to live and work made me chuckle; it's considered an upscale snowbird haven by the rest of us Phoenicians.

 

    Things close with a deadly cat-and-mouse game orchestrated by the baddie.  All turns out well, but… well, we'll talk more about that in a bit.  To The Nines is 372 pages long, covered by 15 chapters, with all the plotlines tied up by the end.  It is both a standalone story and part of a 30-book series, and is still “active”, with the 31^st installment due out this coming November.

 

And for us OCD folks who love to keep track of things:

    Number of FTA’s apprehended: 4

    Number of bodyguards worn out: 2

    Number of cars wrecked by Stephanie : Zero!

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 7,219 ratings and 842 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.16/5 based on 120,841 ratings and 2,415 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Maybe I’d get more cases if I had more hair.  A lot of people don’t like bald men.  Not that I’m bald, but it’s starting to get thin.”  He smoothed his hand over his few remaining strands of hair.  “You probably didn’t notice that it was thin, but I can tell when the light hits it just right.

    “You should try that chemical stuff you pour on your head,” Grandma said.  “My friend Lois Grizen uses it and she grew some hair.  Only problem was she used it at night and it rubbed off on her pillow and got on her face and now she has to shave twice a day.”  (loc. 1429)

 

    “She’s coming with a dish of my mother’s manicotti.  Have you ever tasted my mother’s manicotti?”

    “You sold me out for manicotti!”

    Morelli grinned and kissed me on the forehead.  “You can have some, too.  And by the way, your hair is cute.”

    I narrowed my eyes at him.  I wasn’t feeling cute.  In fact, I’d decided I didn’t like cute.  Cute wasn’t a word anyone would use to describe Morelli or Ranger.  Cute implied a degree of helplessness.  Kittens were cute.  (loc. 4053)

 

Kindle Details…

    Right now, To The Nines will run you a mere $2.99 at Amazon.  The rest of the e-books in the series are priced from $2.99 to $9.99.  Janet Evanovich has several other series for your reading pleasure, mostly in the Romance genre, and in the $6.99-$13.99 price range.

 

“I think I might have gotten married to an Elvis impersonator.”  (loc. 2451)

    There’s quite a bit of profanity in To The Nines, but that’s the norm for this series.  There’s a nice selection of cusswords, including eight f-bombs; plus there are a couple of tastefully done rolls-in-the-hay, and one reference to an oral act.

 

    I only spotted one typo: smokey/smoky; and even that one is more a question of the preferred spelling (smoky), rather than being out-and-out wrong.  Kudos to whoever did the editing.

 

    My main gripe is with the ending: it felt contrived, too convenient, and rushed.  It’s difficult to give details without them being spoilers, but here goes.  Two characters get abducted without any details given of how and when.  One of them supplies key information that enables Stephanie to survive the game.  Stephanie’s aiming in total darkness is remarkably accurate, and the cavalry arrives in an unbelievably short time.

 

    Still, the ending was suitably exciting and it got the job done: Good once again wins out against Evil.  Overall, To The Nines was a solid entry in this series, despite the rushed ending.  I enjoyed the book and am eager to read the next one in the series, Ten Big Ones.

 

    8½ Stars.  One last thing.  Late in the story, there is mention of peanut butter and olive sandwiches.  Stephanie makes them for supper with Joe Morelli, and it is implied that both of them enjoy such a meal.  El Yucko to the Extremo!

Hard Eight - Janet Evanovich

   2002; 326 pages.  Book 8 (out of 29) in the “Stephanie Plum” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Crime–Humor; Women Sleuths; Beach Novel.  Overall Rating: 8*/10.

 

    It’s time to branch out a bit.

 

    After seven books’ worth of hauling in FTA’s (“Failures To Appear”), bounty hunter Stephanie Plum elects to do a favor for her parents’ neighbor, Mabel Markowitz, and go looking for Mabel’s daughter Evelyn and 7-year-old granddaughter Annie.

 

    It’s a pro bono job, and Stephanie still has to nab two FTA’s in her spare time.  But Evelyn’s recently divorced and everyone’s pretty sure she’s just gone into hiding with her daughter to keep the ex-husband from getting custody of Annie.  Foul play seems unlikely, and even the ex-hubby seems to want them found.

 

    But take care, Steph.  Other parties seem to also be interested in Evelyn’s and Annie’s whereabouts, and they’re not shy at all about resorting to violence.

 

     Including a rabbit and a bear.  Both about six feet tall.

 

What’s To Like...

    Hard Eight is the eighth book in Janet Evanovich’s great Stephanie Plum series.  I’ve been reading the series in order, although I don’t think that’s necessary.  The standard formula for these books still holds true here: what starts out as a seemingly straightforward task—locate the mother and daughter on the run—rapidly gets more complicated.

 

    Stephanie gets a new, and unwanted, sleuthing partner here, a bumbling lawyer named Albert Klougn (pronounced “Clown”), who adds yet another comedic character to the cast.  I hope Janet Evanovich plans to make him a recurring character.  Valerie’s daughter Mary Alice returns, she who is convinced she’s a horse, although for a while here, she’s also a reindeer.

 

    Stephanie still has to chase down two FTAs (gotta do something to pay the bills), and as usual, hilarious misadventures arise.  There’s also the series-long love triangle involving Stephanie, Ranger, and Joe Morelli to keep the reader entertained.  The recurring effort by Stephanie to choose between the two is once again present, and it’s not a spoiler to say that dilemma will carry over to Book Nine.

 

    The main storyline is the search for Evelyn and Annie, but there are various subplots to keep the reader’s interest.  Who sent the snakes, and why?  Who dumped a body in Stephanie’s apartment?  What’s with the Rabbit and Bear, and later on, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton?  Who does Stephanie’s arch rival, Jeanne Ellen Burrows work for and why is she so interested in all this?

 

    I enjoyed learning about both death cooties and TastyKake therapy.  It was neat to find out that Stephanie’s “perfect” older sister Valerie once won a spelling bee in school, since I did the same many years ago.  Determining the bad guy’s identity is pretty easy for both Stephanie and the reader, but that’s okay.  This isn’t a whodunit, it’s a “whydunit”.

 

Excerpts...

    “Wait a minute.  I have a theoretical question.  Suppose you were watching television with me.  And we were alone in my apartment.  And I had a couple glasses of wine, and I sort of passed out.  Would you try to make love to me, anyway?  Would you do a little exploring while I was asleep?”

    “What are we watching?  Is it the play-offs?”

    “You can leave now,” I said.  (pg. 175)

 

    Halfway through the movie, the doorbell rang.  It was Ranger.  Dressed in his usual black.  Full utility belt, looking like Rambo.  Hair tied back.  He stood there in silence when I opened the door.  The corners of his mouth tipped slightly into the promise of a smile.

    “Babe, your couch is in the hall.”

    “It has death cooties.”

    “I knew there’d be a good explanation.”  (pg. 265)

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 3,088 ratings and 945 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.16*/5, based on 121,011 ratings and 2,443 reviews.

 

“What are you, nuts? (…) I can’t shoot an unarmed rabbit.”  (pg. 281)

    There are a couple nits to pick.

 

    As usual there’s a bunch of cussing; I counted 23 instances in the first 20%.  There are two rolls-in-the-hay, and one indecent exposure incident.  Overall, this is about average for a Stephanie Plum book.

 

    For me, the bigger issue was the ending.  The tension builds towards an exciting showdown, but then all the action occurs offscreen.  We don’t witness the reunion with Evelyn and Annie, we don’t get to see the bad guys get their comeuppance, and worst of all (ANAICT) we don’t find out why Stephanie’s stun gun malfunctions at the most critical times.

 

    Still, those bad guys do get their comeuppance, and all ends well for the two runaways.  Hard Eight is full of interesting characters, snarky dialogue, romantic tension, and LOL humor.  That’s what I expect in a Stephanie Plum book, and this one delivered on all counts.

 

    8 Stars.  For those who keep track of such things accomplished by Stephanie:  Total Cars Wrecked: 3.  Total Handbags Lost: 1.  Total Handcuffs Lost: 5.

High Five - Janet Evanovich

   1999; 317 pages.  Book 5 (out of 25) of the Stephanie Plum series.   New Author? : No.  Genre : Crime-Humor; Beach Novel.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

    Dear old Uncle Fred, the family tightwad, is missing.  He’s been gone a couple of days now.  This isn’t overly surprising, since he is 72 years old, and folks are prone to have some “senior moments” at that age.

    He disappeared while running his daily errands – picking up his dry cleaning, going down to the garbage company to gripe about their poor service, and a couple other stops.  His car’s been found, with the dry cleaning stacked neatly on the back seat.  There were no signs of a struggle.   So he’s probably just wandering around in a daze somewhere on the streets of Trenton.

    Luckily, his niece happens to be Stephanie Plum, and she’s a bounty hunter by trade and therefore good at finding people, amiright?  So as a favor to her Aunt Mabel, Uncle Fred’s not-very-grieving wife, she takes on the job, even though it’s a non-paying one.  Besides, how hard can it be to find one lost geezer out on the streets?

    But with every day that goes by without Stephanie finding him, the odds that he’s still alive fall just a little bit more.

What’s To Like...

    High Five is Book 5 (obviously, thanks to the title format) in Janet Evanovich’s humorous, quirky, snarky “Stephanie Plum – Bounty Hunter” series.  At present, there are 25 books in it, with #26 due out in November.  The book’s length is typical for the series (just over 300 pages), as is the number of chapters (15), the setting (Trenton), and the  1^st-person POV narration (Stephanie’s).  I’m reading the series in chronological order, but honestly, I don’t think that’s necessary. 

    As usual, Janet Evanovich blends in a bunch of plotlines to keep the action humming along nicely.  Here, in spoiler-free format, the challenges for Stephanie are:

a.) Find Uncle Fred and figure out why he disappeared,

b.) Bring in three FTA’s (“Failures To Appear”),

c.) Get enough money to pay next month’s rent,

d.) Find a second job to accomplish that'

e.) Solve the body parts pictures mystery' and

f.)  Try not to get killed by several people with several motives.

    I always enjoy the characters in these books, boththe  recurring ones, like Grandma Mazur, and new ones, such as “Bunchy”, who’s a bookie (at least that’s what he claims) and Randy Briggs, a “little person” (his choice of words), who manages to be both an FTA and Stephanie’s roommate.  Lula still uses her favorite phrase, "damn“skippy”, as often as possible; and Stephanie is still torn between Ranger and Joe Morelli as love interests.

     Everything culminates in a satisfying ending.  It’s a bit over-the-top, but that’s okay for a beach read type of story.  The perpetrator gets identified and caught, and the reasons for his/her actions make sense, despite both Stephanie and I being slow to figure them out.  ISTR the Epilogue being used before in this series, but that’s okay too, because it's a teaser for the next book.  I don’t expect much out of epilogues.  High Five is both a standalone novel and part of a series.

Excerpts...

    “I need to know about Tank.  No one will tell me anything.  Is he, um, you know-?”

    “Dead?  No.  Unfortunately.  He was wearing a flak vest.  The impact of the bullet knocked him back and stunned him.  He hit his head when he fell and was out for a while, but he’s fine.  And by the way, where were you when he was shot?”

    “I was stretched out on the floor.  It was past my bedtime.”

    Morelli grinned.  “Let me get this straight.  You didn’t get shot because you fell asleep on the job?”

    “Something like that.  It sounded better the way I phrased it.”  (pg. 61 )

    Barrroooom!  Liftoff.  The garbage truck jumped the pavement.  Tires and doors flew off like Frisbees, the truck bounced down with a jolt, listed to one side, and rolled over onto the furiously burning Porsche, turning it into a Porsche pancake.

    We flattened ourselves against the building while pieces of scrap metal and shreds of rubber rained down around us.

    “Uh-oh,” Lula said.  “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men aren’t gonna put that Porsche back together again.”

    “I don’t get it,” the driver said.  “It was only a scratch.  I hardly scraped against your car.  Why would it explode like that?”

    “That’s what her cars do,” Lula said.  “They explode.”  (pg. 235)

“You turned out pretty good considering your gene pool.”  (pg. 174)

    There are a couple caveats.  First, like any book in this series, there’s a bunch of cussing.  If such language offends you, pass this book by.  And if you’re hoping for a resolution of the sexual tension in the Ranger/Joe/Stephanie romantic triangle, well, it doesn’t happen here.  I have a feeling that story thread in going to continue for quite a few more books.

    For you young’uns, once upon a long time ago, and apparently as late as 1999 when this book was written, you took pictures with something called a “film camera” and when the roll was full, you rushed over to a 1-Hour Film Development store (usually a company  named “Fotomat”) to get the film magically converted into photographs or slides in a mere 60 minutes.  Stephanie utilizes a Fotomat in High Five.  Ages ago, I actually assisted my dad in developing reels of film.  It is a lost art.

    Finally, is it too much to ask that just once a waste management company be portrayed as a decent enterprise?  Yes, it’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.  To be fair, at least there was no illegal dumping of hazardous waste going on here, another all-too-common Holly wood trope.

    8½ Stars.  One last bit of statistical trivia, that the Wikipedia article about this series keeps track of.  In High Five there are three FTA’s to be nabbed, and three cars for Stephanie to destroy.  Those are typical numbers for the books in this series, at least so far.

Four To Score - Janet Evanovich

   1998; 313 pages.  Book 4 (out of 24, soon to be 25) of the Stephanie Plum series.   New Author? : No.  Genre : Crime-Humor; Beach Novel.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    Stephanie Plum’s going to get rich this month.  She’s double-dipping on her present bounty hunter case.

    First, there’s the commission she’ll earn by hunting down and bringing in Maxine Nowicki, an FTA (“Failure To Appear” at a court hearing) as an authorized agent for her cousin Vinnie’s Bail Bond business.  Maxine reportedly had a tiff with her then-boyfriend, Eddie Kuntz, and took it out on him by stealing his car.  Eddie retaliated by calling the cops on her, who arrested her, but Maxine didn’t show for her trial.

    Eddie understandably cooperates with Stephanie in her efforts to track down Maxine, and has now given her an added incentive.  He’ll pay her a thousand bucks if she retrieves some love letters he wrote to Maxine in fits of passion.  He says there’s embarrassing stuff in them.

    Eddie is not exactly a lady’s man, so it’s hard to imagine what he’d deem “embarrassing” in those letters.  But hey, for a thousand dollar bonus, Stephanie is more than willing to try to recover them when she successfully brings Maxine in.

    But don’t spend all that money just yet, Steph.  For starters, your cousin Vinnie has hired a second agent to track down Maxine, so you’ve got competition for the commission.  To boot, someone is dead set on scaring, or even killing, people who might know where Maxine is.

    And I don’t think they’d have any qualms about adding you to their list of intended victims.

What’s To Like...

    The action in Four To Score starts immediately, with someone bursting in on Cousin Vinnie and threatening to shoot him.  But since the assailant is Stephanie, we know that’s not the storyline.  I was happy to see Grandma Mazur and Lula both getting some major time in this book; they’re two of my favorite characters in the series.  Morelli and Ranger are back, and there are new people to meet and greet as well, the most notable of which are Sally and Joyce.  I’m hoping they're both developed into recurring roles.

    I counted five plotlines to follow:

    a.)  Stephanie chasing down the FTA, Maxine.

    b.)  Morelli working on a secret case for the government.

    c.)  The body-part chopper-offer.

    d.)  The ardent arsonist.

    e.)  Retrieving Eddie’s love letters.

    You might think that means things get confusing, but they don't.

    As usual, the story is told in the first-person POV, Stephanie’s.  The chapters are moderate in length, 16 of them covering 313 pages.  The pacing is quick, despite the requisite “running around in circles” for a while.  As always, the book’s title has nothing to do with the story.

    I liked the phrase “erotica non grata”; I’ll have to work that into a review somewhere down the line.  Ditto for Lula’s favorite phrase “Damn skippy!”  The musical nods to Savage Garden and Metallica were neat.   For me, the real fun in any Stephanie Plum novel is the witty banter and snarky observations, and in that respect, Four To Score did not disappoint.  This was a fun, fast, easy read.

    There’s a bunch of cussing, and one torrid roll in the hay.  If such things offend you, this isn’t your kind of series.  We also should mention the 7-foot transvestite.  I’m reading this series in order, but frankly, I don’t think that’s necessary.  Stephanie and Joe Morelli still have relationship issues, and I'm guessing that will go on for quite a few more books.  Four To Score is a standalone story, as well as part of a series.

Excerpts...

    She blinked.  “I lost a finger.  Well, I didn’t actually lose it.  It was on the kitchen counter.  I took it to the hospital and got it sewed back on.”

    I had an instant vision of her finger lying on the kitchen counter.  Little black dots danced in front of my eyes, and I felt sweat pop out on my upper lip.  “I’m sorry!”

    “It was an accident,” she said.  “An accident.”

     “Which finger was it?”

    “The middle finger.”

    “Oh man, that’s my favorite finger.”  (pg. 24 )

    The rain stopped halfway home, and Trenton showed no sign of relief from the heat.  The hydrocarbon level was high enough to etch glass, and the highways hummed with road rage.  Air conditioners were failing, dogs had diarrhea, laundry mildewed in hampers, and sinus cavities filled with cement.  If the barometric pressure dropped any lower everyone’s guts would be sucked through the soles of their feet into the bowels of the earth.  (pg. 200)

 Why deal with unpleasantness today when you could get hit by a bus tomorrow?   (pg. 137)

    The quibbles are minor.  Maxine-the-FTA chooses to tease her ex-boyfriend Eddie by sending him a series of coded messages about the stuff he wants returned.  Neither Eddie nor Stephanie are any good at puzzle-solving so they enlist the aid of others.  It would’ve been fun if the reader could try to decipher those messages as well, but we’re never shown any of the codes.  I was mildly bummed.

    The ending is a mixed bag.  On one hand, the five plotlines all get tied up nicely, and all parties receive their just desserts.  On the other hand, everything gets resolved in one chapter, and that felt a bit rushed to me.

    But enough nitpicking.  Four To Score was a light and delightful read for me, which was exactly what I was looking for.  Books 5 and 6 are on my TBR shelf, waiting their turns.

    8 Stars.  Wikipedia adds a pair of droll statistics to their posts on the early Stephanie Plum books: the number of FTA’s in each story, and the number of vehicles Stephanie manages to ruin each time.  They stop doing so somewhere up in the teens of the book numbers, but here the stats were: 3 FTA’s, 2 Car-Deaths.  I'm thinking of starting to include those in these reviews.

Three To Get Deadly - Janet Evanovich

   1997; 344 pages.  Book 3 (out of 22) of the Stephanie Plum series.   New Author? : No, but it’s been a while.  Genre : Crime-Humor; Beach Novel.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    Eeny meeny miny … oops … where’s Mo disappeared to?

    Moses “Uncle Mo” Bedemier is a popular figure in the burg.  He’s been operating a candy store for decades, and so is a favorite among the kids in town, both present ones and those who have since moved on to adulthood.  But he was recently found carrying an unregistered firearm after a routine traffic stop, arrested, and Stephanie Plum’s employer, Cousin Vinnie, posted the bail money.

    Now Uncle Mo’s skipped his court appearance, and Vinnie’s in danger of losing the money he put up.  So it’s up to bounty hunter Stephanie to find Mo and bring him in.

    But when you’re looking for a neighborhood icon, you sometimes find that the locals view you as the bad guy, not Uncle Mo.  So lotsa luck finding him, Steph.  Don’t expect the townsfolk to help you.

What’s To Like...

    Three To Get Deadly is my third Stephanie Plum book, but I read the first two way back in 2009, and they are reviewed here and here.  So I appreciated muchly Janet Evanovich working the backstory into the first few percent of the e-book.  Stephanie is still learning the tricks of the trade, mostly from Ranger.  And she’s mentoring her new protégée, Lula.  Joe Morelli’s back, keeping Steph hot and breathless, and so is Grandma Mazur, albeit in a lesser role.

    There’s a nice balance between wit and mystery-solving.  I thought for a while that the latter was being ignored.  But it turns out the clues were there; but both Stephanie and I were just too dense to see them.   There’s a red herring or two to keep you on your toes, and a new (at least for me) acronym to learn:  “FTA” (“Failure To Appear”).

    This is a quasi-cozy mystery.  Stephanie keeps coming across a bunch of bodies, but I don’t recall any of them dying onstage.  There’s a bunch of cussing, a few “adult themes”, and at least one steamy bit of petting, but it’s all somehow tastefully done.

    The writing style is heavy on dialogues, and I think that keeps the reader’s interest.  The setting is Trenton, New Jersey; when’s the last time you read a book set there?  And beneath all the wit, Evanovich explores a serious topic and a dark one.  I’ve listed them in the comments to the post, for the sake of avoiding spoilers.

    The ending is good, with Mo’s disappearance satisfactorily resolved.  This is a standalone novel, as well as part of a series.

Kewlest New Word (Phrase, actually). . .

Damn Skippy (interjection) : not just yes, but hell yes.

Others : Cachet (n.)

Excerpts...

    “First off,” Connie said, “Bruce Wayne is Batman, and Batman isn’t actually a superhero.  Batman’s just some neurotic guy in a rubber suit.  You have to get nuked or come from another planet to be a real superhero.”

    “Batman’s got his own comic book,” Lula said.

    Connie wasn’t impressed with this logic.  “Donald Duck has his own comic book.  You think Donald Duck is a superhero?”  (loc. 3210 )

    I woke up feeling guilty about the junk food binge, so for penance I cleaned the hamster cage, rearranged the jars in the refrigerator and scrubbed the toilet.  I looked for ironing, but there was none.  When something needs to be ironed I put it in the ironing basket.  If a year goes by and the item is still in the basket I throw the item away.  This is a good system since eventually I end up only with clothes that don’t need ironing.  (loc. 3572)

Kindle Details...

    Three To Get Deadly is presently going for $1.99 at Amazon right now, which is a fantastic price for a book from a top-tier author.  There are 22 books in this series (soon to be 23), and they range in price from $1.99 (for #2 and #3) to $13.99 for their Kindle versions.  Janet Evanovich has several other series going, none of which I’ve read.

 “I come in like the fog on little cat feet.   (loc. 341)

    I can’t really think of anything to quibble about in Three To Get Deadly.   The pace is good, the characters are all fun to meet, the wit and humor is there from start to finish, and all the R-rated stuff seems to fit in well with the tone of the book.

    I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to get back to reading this series.  In rereading my reviews of books #1 ad #2, it’s obvious I liked them.  Perhaps I was worried that all the storylines would start sounding the same, and who knows, perhaps they will.  But for now, I can say I’ve enjoyed all three Stephanie Plum books I’ve read thus far.  I’ll probably pick up a couple more in the near future, although it’s questionable whether or not I’ll continue to read them in order.

    8 Stars.  There’s a reason why Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books make the New York Times Best Sellers list time after time.

Two for the Dough - Janet Evanovich

1996; 312 pages. A Stephanie Plum novel. A "Lula" recommendation, which is much more reliable than an "Oprah" recommendation. Genre : Crime; Beach Novel. Overall Rating : B..

    Fledgling bounty hunter Stephanie Plum has two jobs : looking for bail-jumper Kenny Mancuso and finding 24 stolen bargain-bin caskets. Joe Morelli and Ranger are around for hunk-appeal. Lula finds filing at Vinnie's better than walking the streets. And Grandma Mazur packs a pistol, appoints herself Stephanie's partner, and becomes the worst nightmare for all funeral parlors in New Jersey.
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What's To Like...
    If you enjoyed One For The Money, then you'll happily find 2FTD is more of the same. There's witty banter; a couple of plot twists to keep you on your toes; a realistic bounty hunting portrayal (lots of sitting and waiting), and a plucky heroine determined to make it in a tough neighborhood. The sexual tension between Plum and Morelli flows nicely through the whole book, without ever sinking into "Chick Fic" territory. There is the obligatory nude scene with an unexpected climax. Finally, there is Grandma Mazur, a spinster with a 'tude, and who frankly steals the show.

.OTOH...Most of the role players here are black or white. If they don't hit it off with Stephanie, you can pretty much write them down as being baddies. There are some believability issues (repeated appendage slicing at the funeral homes; the bad guys missing Granny's concealed weapon, etc.) and some unresolved loose ends (Steph's jeep gets stolen, stays stolen, and no one seems too concerned).

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I'm going to the beach. What book should I take?If James Patterson's Alex Cross books are airport novels, then Stephanie Plum books are beach novels. Something to pass the time while working on one's tan. There's nothing deep, but it is satisfyingly entertaining. Ten years from now, you won't recall any of the details about Two For The Money, but you will remember that you enjoyed it.

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An excerpt...
"Bars, funeral homes, bakeries, and beauty parlors form the hub of the wheel that spins the burg. Beauty parlors are especially important because the burg is an equal-opportunity neighborhood caught in a 1950's time warp. The translation of this is that girls in the burg become obsessed with hair at a very early age. The hell with coed peewee football. If you're a little girl in the burg, you spend your time combing out Barbie's hair. Big gunky black eyelashes, electric-blue eye shadow, pointy outthrust breasts, and a lot of platinum-blond phony-looking hair. This is what we all aspire to." (pg. 149)

One for the Money - Janet Evanovich

1994; 320 pages. Genre : Crime Fiction. Overall Rating : B-..

    Stephanie Plum needs a job, so she schmoozes her cousin Vinnie and gets hired on as a bounty hunter. Unfortunately, she knows nothing about the vocation, so she needs a gun, needs to learn how to shoot it, and needs to figure out how to haul someone in. Most of all, she needs the $10,000 finders fee for bringing in Joe Morelli; who's a cop accused of murder, a hunk, and who as a kid, conned Stephanie into playing the New Jersey equivalent of "doctor".

What's To Like...
    Evanovich has created a strong, female protagonist in Plum. She can use her brain, which comes in handy as she learns her new profession. Indeed, it was refreshing to see her outfox Joe Morelli in order to bring him in, instead of having to resort to her feminine wiles or (worse yet) romance.

.   There is vein of light humor that runs throughout the book, and wonder of wonders, we're not dealing with someone who suffers from job burn-out. It's also a nice change to follow a bounty hunter instead of a cop or detective in a crime novel. Morelli is another good character study, although it is evident early on that he's not really a murderer.

   .Unfortunately, the great character studies come at the expense of a humdrum storyline. Stephanie gads about, searching for Morelli and bringing in easy, but low-paying bail-jumpers. Meanwhile, no progress is made on the main murder until the tail-end, when the real killer of course blabs all the details to Stephanie right before he intends to kill her. Don't bad guys ever watch Austin Powers movies?

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    There are believability issues. The entire New Jersey police force can't find Morelli, but Stephanie manages to do so - not once, not twice, but four times. Then there's her visit to a boxing gym, where the "champ" decides to attempt to sexually assault her for no particular reason and in front of everyone else working out at the gym. Yeah, like that happens all the time.

Cogito, ergo Plum...
    The Stephanie Plum series has been highly successful for Evanovich, and I noted that the latest one (something like #15 or so), "Plum Spooky" was #1 on the NY Times best seller list last week. It may be interesting to see how her character develops along the line. Presumably, she gets more adept at bounty-hunting with time.
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    If you're looking for an entertaining story, with a bit of humor and a good, strong, thinking female lead, One For The Money may be your cup of tea. OTOH, this isn't the book to read when you're wanting spine-tingling suspense or wish to solve a whodunit alongside the protagonist. As long as you're more interested in what happens to Stephanie and her bounty-hunting than who-killed-who and why, this is a pleasant read.