“To the Nines” by Janet Evanovich

“To the Nines” by Janet Evanovich
2003 St Martin's Press
ISBN 0-312-26586-7

“To the Nines” by Janet Evanovich. This is maybe the 3rd or 4th book I’ve read by Janet Evanovich and I can’t seem to get enough of Stephanie Plum’s exploits. Stephanie, the heroine in all of these stories, is a bounty hunter. My husband and I got hooked watching, “Dog – The Bounty Hunter” and more recently a couple of spin off shows, “Wife, Mom and Bounty Hunter” and now, “Bounty Girls – Miami”. But, all of those shows pale in comparison to what Stephanie Plum gets to do in the pages of her books.

In this story, “The Game” is deadly, dangerous and scary. Stephanie (a little like Lucille Ball at times) is like a trouble magnet. The bad guys sort of zero in on her and she becomes the prize in the Game. Catching the guy who is at the bottom of all the dead bodies that begin to litter the pages of this book is what captivates you and keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Also, there is the sex angle. Always nice to have a hot love interest and Joe Morelli, policeman and boyfriend of many years and Ranger, fellow mysterious bounty hunter, provide both. Hey, give a girl some choices and life suddenly gets really interesting.

The other characters in this book are the same folks in the other books and you come to know them and expect they will be there and they all sing together making another really terrific read. You’ve got Lula, a former ho turned file clerk and wanna be bounty hunter who accompanies Stephanie and helps out with accidentally breaking windows all over the place with her purse so they can get in and search places for fugitives. There is Connie, office manager of the bounty hunter business. Vincent, a slime ball guy if ever there was one, but he’s Stephanie’s cousin and he owns the bounty hunter business. He gave Stephanie the job when she got laid off.

Stephanie’s immediate family is the hoots too, her mother who’s constantly appalled at the gossip that circulates about her daughter in the New Jersey town they live in. There’s Grandma Mazer who lives with the family and reminds me of Ethel on hormones. And, Stephanie’s father, retired from the post office but occasionally drives a taxi part-time and tries his hardest to stay out of the way of the rest of his family.

It’s like a sit-com in a book. I was thinking the other day about how I’ve been reading lots of these books and have plans to read all the rest of them. I thought about how some day I’m going to run out and then what will I do? That’s when one of the guides said, “Just start reading them over again.” Yeah. That’s what I’ll do.