Turbo Twenty-Three

 Turbo Twenty-Three by Janet Evanovich   288 pages

This book is part of a series - everyone seems to be writing series these days.   Stephanie Plum is a female bounty hunter with a best friend and side kick who is a retired prostitute named Lula.  Lula is always looking for an angle to make some money and decides to go into reality t.v. with a show titled, "Naked and Afraid," which puts the lead characters naked out in a tough neighborhood to see what all they go through to survive.  While this is going on Stephanie's mentor, Ranger, who also happens to be one of two of Stephanie's love interests brings her in on a murder case. when an upper level employee of an ice cream factory's dead body falls out of a stolen ice cream factory truck covered in chocolate and nuts.   Stephanie goes under cover as a factory employee to try to find the killer.   It is a pretty laugh out loud series of events that take place in the pursuit of the perpetrator.    I liked the characters, especially Lula and Stephanie.    I think this series would be amusing to males and females from middle school on up.   Good series, think I will read more of their adventures.

 - Shirley J.

Look Alive Twenty-Five

Look Alive Twenty-Five by Janet Evanovich   311 pages

Another fun story with Bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum and her best friend and helper also former hooker, Lula going under cover working at a deli this time.   Seems the managers at the Red river Deli keep disappearing when they go out to take the trash to the dumpster in back of the deli.   The managers disappear, and all that is left is one of their shoes.    Can Stephanie and Lula pull a Cinderella move and find them by their shoe or will they solve the mystery and several murders with the help of Granger and Morelli (Stephanie's 2 love interests before Stephanie's day as Manager leaves her missing with only her shoe for a clue left behind.   Good book, funny repartee. I recommend this to mature highschoolers on up due to some sexual content and references.

- Shirley J.

The first eight Stephanie Plum books

One for the Money, Two for the Dough, Three to get Deadly, Four to Score, High Five, Hot Six, Seven Up, and Hard Eight by Janet Evanovich, (8 books - 2551 pages)

Having read my way through all of the Meg Langslow Mystery series, I set out looking for my next coz mystery series. I had some criteria that I thought would help narrow the field such as any series had to be at least five books long. Finished series and series with puny titles would also receive an extra glance. The Stephanie Plum series, I must admit, was not the first series I selected, it was actually the third. The others however fell by the wayside with unlikeable characters and horrid writing.

The Stephanie Plum series follows one Stephanie Plum as she tries to survive and make rent in Trenton. But after a messy divorce and losing her job as a lingerie buyer, the ends are not meeting. She tries to stretch things along, selling off appliances as needed but eventually she is forced to blackmail her cousin Vinnie into giving her a job. Unfortunately for her it is not the desk job she was hoping for, instead it's bounty hunting. While the job isn't what she wanted, with the all of the shooting and such, she tries to make it work. Except she is likely the worst bounty hunter in the world. Not only does she frequently lose the people she is trying to capture, but they also tend to humiliate her in the process. She also has a tendency to have her car blown up and to find dead people. Though some how it all works out in the end.

All in all this makes for a funny and quick read. The series is a little on the morbid, or dark side for my definition of a cozy mystery, but is still worth reading. Though like all of these series, you have to wonder when the police are just going to lock up the protagonist, for the safety of everyone else.

Top Secret Twenty-One

Top Secret Twenty-One by Janet Evanovich 
 341 pages

I really liked this newest addition to the Stephanie Plum series.  Several parts made me laugh out loud.  In this book Stephanie is hunting down a skip, as usual, and having trouble, as usual.  Jimmy Poletti shouldn’t be this difficult but he has been impossible to find.  Meanwhile, Randy Briggs, a little person, has sought refuge with Stephanie because he says that Poletti is trying to kill him.  Someone has firebombed his apartment and he needs a place to stay.  Stephanie agree to help because, even though Briggs is a huge pain, she may be able to use him as bait to catch Poletti.  Meanwhile, someone is also trying to kill Ranger and has come closer to succeeding than most, which is making Stephanie very nervous, since Ranger is one of the most competent and lethal men that she knows.  I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes romantic comic adventure.