Sizzling Sixteen

May 31, 2010
In this tepid Stephanie Plum adventure from Evanovich (Finger Lickin' Fifteen, etc.), a personal case distracts the Trenton, N.J., bondswoman from tracking the usual group of eccentric skips—the kidnapping of her cousin, Vinnie, who's being held for ransom in the high six figures. As Stephanie, sidekick Lula, and office manager Connie soon realize, Vincent Plum Bail Bonds is seriously in the red due to Vinnie's gambling. Vinnie's also gotten caught up with local mobster Bobby Sunflower in a complicated scheme. Even though her sleazy cousin isn't her favorite person and chasing oddball felons isn't her ideal career, Stephanie knows family loyalty counts for something, plus she owes him for giving her a job all those years ago. So with Lula and Connie in tow—and romantic interests Morelli and Ranger lurking in the background— Stephanie must save the day once again. Evanovich is at her best spinning the bizarre subplots involving Stephanie's bail jumpers, but the larger story simply recycles elements from previous installments.

June 15, 2010

Does the legacy of her Uncle Pip's lucky bottle really bring Stephanie Plum good fortune? You be the judge.

There's never been a better need for a lucky break at Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. Cousin Vinnie has been kidnapped by Bobby Sunflower, the new boss of Mickey Gritch, the bookie to whom Vinnie racked up an improbable debt of $786,000. Even though Vinnie's father-in-law, Harry the Hammer, has sold ownership of the firm to the venture-capital firm The Wellington Company, it's clear that without Vinnie, there'll be no employment for Stephanie, his bounty hunter, or Lula, his file clerk, wheelman and fashionista. So they're highly motivated to rescue him or come up with enough cash to pay off his debt. Rescuing him means going up against Sunflower's goons; paying up means bringing in some major Failures to Appear—bigamist/shoplifter Dirk McCurdle, alligator-friendly Choppers (né Eugene Gonzolez), leviathan exhibitionist Butch Goodey—or robbing some of Sunflower's collection points so that they can pay him off with his own money. Since this bestselling series (Finger Lickin' Fifteen, 2009, etc.) is more interested in crazy characters and wisecracks than plot, it's not giving too much away to say that Stephanie and Lula, with occasional help from Det. Joe Morelli, Stephanie's main squeeze, and much more frequent help from dark-knight security agent Ranger, Stephanie's other squeeze, try every single one of these strategies, and they all work, sort of.

Worth celebrating, not for the tangled story, but for gems like Lula's four ways of managing stress: "There's drugs, there's alcohol, there's sex, and there's doughnuts."

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

June 1, 2010
Stephanie Plum, half-Italian, half-Hungarian, a shrewd mixture of smarts and dumb luck, works for her cousin Vinny as a bail bondswoman in Trenton, New Jersey. Vinny, however, is in deep fecal matter, owing too much money to the very scary guys who have kidnapped him. Stephanie, office manager Connie, and Lula, plus-sized and focused (if not on the job at hand), manage to spring Vinny (more than once) and find a lot of money to pay what he owes. Along the way, they facilitate a cow stampede and an alligator escape; are assisted by a bunch of Hobbit con-goers; and find their office going up quite thoroughly in flames. Stephanie wrecks the usual car and ping-pongs between the hot and dangerous Ranger and the hot and domestic Morelli. Ranger says the love word to Stephanie, but it is Morelli at the end, offering her a pink, lacy thong. In the first few pages, Evanovich both catches readers up on the hilarious and cockeyed history of the preceding 15 books and gives fans a little more of everything they want, including the return of beloved stoner Mooner. Funny, scary, silly, and sweet.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)

June 15, 2010

Does the legacy of her Uncle Pip's lucky bottle really bring Stephanie Plum good fortune? You be the judge.

There's never been a better need for a lucky break at Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. Cousin Vinnie has been kidnapped by Bobby Sunflower, the new boss of Mickey Gritch, the bookie to whom Vinnie racked up an improbable debt of $786,000. Even though Vinnie's father-in-law, Harry the Hammer, has sold ownership of the firm to the venture-capital firm The Wellington Company, it's clear that without Vinnie, there'll be no employment for Stephanie, his bounty hunter, or Lula, his file clerk, wheelman and fashionista. So they're highly motivated to rescue him or come up with enough cash to pay off his debt. Rescuing him means going up against Sunflower's goons; paying up means bringing in some major Failures to Appear--bigamist/shoplifter Dirk McCurdle, alligator-friendly Choppers (n� Eugene Gonzolez), leviathan exhibitionist Butch Goodey--or robbing some of Sunflower's collection points so that they can pay him off with his own money. Since this bestselling series (Finger Lickin' Fifteen, 2009, etc.) is more interested in crazy characters and wisecracks than plot, it's not giving too much away to say that Stephanie and Lula, with occasional help from Det. Joe Morelli, Stephanie's main squeeze, and much more frequent help from dark-knight security agent Ranger, Stephanie's other squeeze, try every single one of these strategies, and they all work, sort of.

Worth celebrating, not for the tangled story, but for gems like Lula's four ways of managing stress: "There's drugs, there's alcohol, there's sex, and there's doughnuts."

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)