One for the Money

One For The Money by Janet Evanovich
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lingerie buyer Stephanie Plum is down on her luck and out of work until she goes into business for herself - as a bounty hunter.

This is exactly the kind of book I wanted to read this summer: breezy and fast, with sexy, scary, and funny all mixed in. Stephanie is a total wise-ass and Jersey all the way through. She takes to skip tracing like a duck to jello, but she doesn't quit just because she's humiliated, threatened, or out of her depth. Nope. She's far too broke for that.

Plus, she has a score to settle with an old flame who's skipped out and is on the run trying to prove he's innocent of murder. Joe Morelli may be telling the truth, but he's worth $10,000 to Stephanie and that can buy a lot of beer and pizza.

Now I understand why people were so pissed at the movie - they took Evanovich's sensible though inexperienced heroine and made her a total reckless ditz. They made the men around her condescending jackasses, and scaled back the terrifying psychopath targeting Plum, making both the danger and her triumph feel slight. They attempted to maintain the tone with her voiceovers, but instead put in gems like "His car was yellow." When we're looking right at it.

Yes, I know what color this car is.

There are only two good reasons for watching the film instead of reading the book:


(Okay, so they cast a straight-up Irishman as a Morelli, and Daniel Sujata is a little too much of a clean-cut Adonis for Ranger. Oh well. But both of these men need to be in more movies.)

If you like this book, you're in luck because there are only about a zillion more in the Plum series, handily numbered for your convenience. Once you're done counting, try the alphabet starting with A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton, or the Carlotta Carlyle books by Linda Barnes (number one is A Trouble of Fools).

Quotable:

• "The clock on the dash told me I was seven minutes late, and the urge to scream told me I was home."
• "I shot that sucker right in the gumpy."
• "Suppose I lay down on the pavement and you run over me a few times with my own car...just for old times."
• "My body is not designed to run. My body was designed to sit in an expensive car and drive."