Ten Big Ones - Janet Evanovich

Take an exit off the Jersey Turnpike to the irresistible world of Stephanie Plum, America's favorite bounty hunter, where she gets into more trouble than ever. This time, she faces a notorious gang in Trenton who wants her dead. Morelli warns that she's in too deep, and Stephanie more than agrees. But the gang won't let her bow out. With Ranger missing in action, Stephanie has to go into hiding--and stumbles on to the secret location of Ranger's "bat cave." Is it the perfect place to disappear? Or will she get into more trouble than she knows by delving into his private world?

~~~~~~~~~~~

Book 23 - Again, summer fun and fluff.

Naughty Neighbor - Janet Evanovich

Sneaking around in the shadows was more fun than Louisa ever imagined .. Pete never figured on finding a partner in crime who tasted like dessert. Once he'd taught Louisa to enjoy living on the edge, would she finally feel safe in his love?

~~~~~~~~~~
Book # 22 - Summer silliness.

I have to add this disclaimer. The cover on the book I read was much more current than the one I've posted, not so hokey looking.

To The Nines - Janet Evanovich

Take a trip down the Jersey Turnpike to the irresistible world of Stephanie Plum - where America's favourite bounty hunter gets into more trouble than ever. This time, Stephanie, Lula, and Grandma have a Vegas-sized problem on their hands. The pursuit of a skip brings Stephanie to Las Vegas, and three mob guys want to make sure it's a one-way ticket. Once there, Stephanie meets up with Sally Sweet as well as a whole cast of characters who could only exist in a place like Vegas. With Joe Morelli making a surprise visit and Ranger doing own kind of surveillance, Stephanie's nights have never been hotter. This ninth Stephanie Plum novel is Janet Evanovich's wildest, wackiest, and most suspenseful yet.

~~~~~~~~~~
Book #4 - Good, but typical.

Seven Up - Janet Evanovich

Stephanie thinks she's going after an easy FTA: a senior citizen charged with smuggling contraband cigarettes. But when she and Lula show up at his house, they get more than they bargained for - a corpse in the woodshed and an old man on the lam. Stephanie's mind is on other matters, however, because she has two proposals to consider: vice cop Joe Morelli is proposing marriage, and fellow bounty hunter Ranger is proposing a single perfect night...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Book #6 - This was just the kind of distraction I needed. It was typical Stephanie shenanigans and it got me through a couple days of being sick. I never read two of this series back to back because I find them so similar in format. I break them up so I don't get bored and find the predictability annoying. I'm now half way through the series!

Metro Girl - Janet Evanovich

Wild Bill is up to his gonads in trouble. Never the brightest spark, he's hired himself out as a boat captain to some shady American investors who have him ferrying unknown objects -- and the occasional Florida politician -- in and out of Cuba. Everything's going well, until an honest politician realizes the boat-trip will land him deep in Castro's pocket, with Bill's bosses netting a lucrative Cuban real estate package as their reward for securing his vote. When the politician threatens to go public, all hell breaks loose -- and Bill disappears. Dispatched to Florida to find her worthless baby brother, Alexandra 'Barney' Barnaby, the brains of the family, isn't too happy about trading her well-paid-if-boring job in Baltimore for the bugs and heat and bad-hair-day humidity of South Beach. Doing the rounds of Wild Bill's broken-hearted bimbos, she's thinking things can't get much worse than being unemployed and sunburned in Florida. Too bad for Barney -- she's wrong about the getting worse part.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Entertaining and funny at parts.

Hot Six - Janet Evanovich Book #36

Low-rent bounty hunter Stephanie Plum reaches depths of personal experience that other women detectives never quite do. In Hot Six, for example, a sequence of new and hideous cars bite the dust; she finds herself lumbered with a policeman's multiply incontinent dog; and she has several bad skin days. All this when she is trying to prove her distinctly more competent colleague and occasional boyfriend Ranger innocent of a mob hit; avoid the heavies trailing her in the hope of finding him; and cope with a wife-abusing bail-defaulter with nasty habits such as setting Stephanie on fire. The peculiar joy of this series is the comic sense of place; Plum's New Jersey is one where everyone you meet, even the most dangerous of criminals, was at school with you, or stole your mother's first boyfriend, or gave your great-aunt a middling good recipe for meatloaf. Evanovich has built up an attractive cast of comic characters with Stephanie's extended family and those of her two boyfriends, the dashing and sinister Ranger and Joe Morelli (the cop whose family are only too keen on his marrying Stephanie). Hot Six will not disappoint either her fans or newcomers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are times when I'm exasperated by the naivete of this character and then in the next paragraph I'm laughing my head off. Go figure. I'll continue reading this series, but more for the relationship between Stephanie and Joe than for anything to do with her other story lines or her bounty hunter prowess.

High Five - Janet Evanovich

"Uncle Fred was someone I saw at weddings and funerals and once in a while at Giovichinni's Meat Market, ordering a quarter pound of olive loaf. Eddie Such, the butcher, would have the olive loaf on the scale and Uncle Fred would say: 'You've got the olive loaf on a piece of waxed paper. How much does that piece of waxed paper weigh? You're not gonna charge me for that waxed paper, are you? I want some money off for the waxed paper.' "
The speaker is Stephanie Plum, the glamorous if slightly ditsy bounty hunter from Trenton, New Jersey, and one of the most original creations in recent mystery fiction.

In this fifth entry in Janet Evanovich's increasingly popular series, Stephanie's problems are many and varied. She's not making enough moneypicking up FTAs (Failures to Appear) for her cousin Vinnie, of Vincent PlumBail Bonds; her red-hot love affair with Detective Joe Morelli has cooled off; and her giant extended family is no help at all. For instance, Uncle Fred the cheapskate has disappeared, leaving behind some suspicious photographs of body parts in garbage bags and links to some really dangerous people.

When Stephanie turns to her friend and mentor, Ranger, for financial advice, he gets her involved in a gang of toughs doing instant evictions for landlords. (She complains to Ranger about the job and its dangers, prompting one of the hired thug to say, "Man, you don't like to get shot. You don't like to get arrested. You don't know how to have fun at all.")

Most of Stephanie's charm, of course, comes from her attitude--a combination of the brazen bravado that turns a failed lingerie model into bounty hunter in the first place and the normal fears of a person in over her head.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, what can I say? Another in the hilarious life and times of Stephanie Plum. A fun and entertaining read. Damn it to hell!!! I need to know who was at the door at the end. As if I (we) wouldn't read book #6! Who the heck did she call???? GRRRRR :)

Four To Score ~ Janet Evanovich

Stephanie Plum's charge is on the run. As a bounty hunter she is responsible for her charge and making sure she attends court. As things start to go wrong Stephanie becomes aware that the girl is hiding a treasure and that people will kill to get it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once again, another laugh out loud book about the escapades of Stephanie Plum. I'm looking forward to book #5 to see what kind of trouble Stephanie will get in with Morelli, as well as the type of case she'll be working.

Three To Get Deadly ~ Janet Evanovich

Trenton, N.J., bounty hunter and former lingerie buyer Stephanie Plum (last seen in Two for the Dough) becomes persona non grata when she tracks down a neighborhood saint who has failed to show up for his court appearance. No one wants to help Stephanie, who works for her bail-bondsman cousin, Vinnie. While questioning admirers of the man nicknamed Uncle Mo, Stephanie is attacked and knocked out as she cases his candy store. She comes to next to the dead body of her attacker, who turns out to be a well-known drug dealer. Suddenly, she can't avoid stumbling across the bodies of dead drug dealers: one in a dumpster, one in a closet and four in the candy store basement. Stephanie suspects that mild-mannered Mo has become a vigilante and is cleaning up the streets in a one-man killing spree. But when she's repeatedly threatened by men wearing ski masks, she wonders if Mo has company and just might be in over his head. Despite her new clownish orange hair job, Stephanie muddles through another case full of snappy one-liners as well as corpses. By turns buttressed and hobbled by her charmingly clueless family and various cohorts (including streetwise co-worker Lulu, detective and heartthrob Morelli and professional bounty hunter Ranger), the redoubtable Stephanie is a character crying out for a screen debut.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I found this book to be the funniest yet. I had so many laugh-out-loud moments with this one. The banter back and forth between Stephanie and Joe is hilarious and the eventual coupling promises to be filled with hilarity and trouble as only Stephanie can find.

Two For The Dough ~ Janet Evanovich

With her bounty hunter pal Ranger stepping in occasionally to advise her, Stephanie staggers knee deep in corpses and caskets as she traipses through back streets, dark alleys, and funeral parlors.

And nobody knows funeral parlors better than Stephanie's irrepressible Grandma Mazur, a lady whose favorite pastime is grabbing a front-row seat at a neighborhood wake. So Stephanie uses Grandma as a cover to follow leads, but loses control when Grandma warms to the action, packing a cool pistol. Much to the family's chagrin, Stephanie and Granny may soon have the elusive Kenny in their sights.

Fast-talking, slow-handed vice cop Joe Morelli joins in the case, since the prey happens to be his young cousin. And if the assignment calls for an automobile stakeout for two with the womanwho puts his libido in overdrive, Morelli's not one to object.

Low on expertise but learning fast, high on resilience, and despite the help she gets from friends and relatives, Stephanie eventually must face the danger alone when embalmed body parts begin to arrive on her doorstep and she's targeted for a nasty death by the most loathsome adversary she's ever encountered. Another case like this and she'll be a real pro.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These novels are such fun. The possibility of such things actually happening is highly unlikely and that is what makes this series so enjoyable. I read to get away from the everyday and these books do just that, offer an entertaining escape