Steamy, Dangerous, Hysterical
It's July in Trenton, NJ where Stephanie Plum, bond enforcement officer for her bail bondsman cousin Vinnie, is looking for Maxine Norwicki. Maxine's been charged with stealing her former boyfriend Eddie Kuntz's car and is now FTA (Failed To Appear in court). "She wasn't a career criminal and the charges weren't serious. She really had no reason to skip out." Eddie Kuntz got a message from Maxine, who's arranged a little treasure hunt for him. Follow the puzzling clues to get back your mushy love letters. Eddie recruits Stephanie to help him. "Maxine's apartment had been ransacked, and two people connected with her had been mutilated. I was thinking maybe someone wanted to find her for something other than love letters. And maybe that someone was Eddie Kuntz."

Stephanie's archenemy, Joyce Barnhardt, has been hired by Vinnie as a rival bounty hunter. Stephanie once caught Joyce having an affair with her now ex-husband, and now she's tailing Stephanie, trying to bring in Maxine first.

Stephanie teams up with Lula, "a 200-lb. Black woman with blond baloney curls all dressed up like Cher on a bad day"; and Sally Sweet, a 7-ft. drag queen rock singer. She also calls on Ranger "a man of few words. He's Cuban-American, former Special Forces, makes a better friend than an enemy, and he's Vinnie's numero uno bounty hunter."

But when someone blows up Stephanie's car AND apartment, all in one day, she's forced to move in with Joe Morelli, the arrogant cop who sweet-talked Stephanie out of her virginity years ago. "The thing is, while I was in love with Morelli for all these years, I'd always known it was best if nothing came of it. Loving Morelli was like loving cheesecake. Hours of misery on the Stairmaster, working off ugly fat, in return for a moment of blissful consumption."

This 4th in the Stephanie Plum series is a great stand-alone book. It details many of the repeat characters and explains some history that I already know, having been reading the series in sequence. If someone wanted to just read a single book from the series, this would be perfect.

I looked forward to this book's release and I was not disappointed at all. Maybe those who find the plot a little weak have a point but, personally, I was just too happy finally getting my hands on the book and getting together again with Steph&Joe, Lula&Grandma, and adding Sally to an already eccentric cast was ingenious! How this amazon cross dresser fits in so well with the rest of this zany cast of characters clearly demonstrates Janet's talent and skill. And the first time Steph&Joe get together?! I was in stitches! Been there - done that! I laughed {out loud} so much, it hurt and tears were running down my face. I could have read the whole book within one day of purchase and, as hard as it was, I l! ! imited myself to only a couple of chapters after reading half of it in one sitting because I wanted it to last longer - I didn't want to say goodbye to these characters and wait another year {much too long} for our next visit.

If you care about these characters, you won't be disappointed.

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