One For the Money

By Janet Evanovich

The first novel in the popular Stephanie Plum saga, finds Stephanie desperate for money after losing her job. She has hocked most of her furniture and appliances and her car was repossessed and she is in danger of losing her apartment. So she turns to her cousin Vincent for temporary work. Vincent runs a bail bonding business and part of the business is tracking down people who failed to appear for the court hearing, putting the bond in danger of forfeit. So Vinnie needs people to track these folks down and haul them in to the police, for which the recovery agent receives a percentage of the amount of the bail as their fee for the recovery. Vinnie doesn't really want to hire Stephanie, but she has some juicy info on Vinnie that he also doesn't want his wife to hear about so he reluctantly gives Stephanie some bond skips to trace.
The most important of these is Joe Morelli, a policeman accused of murder. Joe and Stephanie have a history going clear back to childhood and Stephanie has never forgiven Joe for taking advantage of her when she was a teen. Tracking him down and turning him in will give her a real feeling of satisfaction. On the other hand, Joe is an experienced police officer and a pretty intimidating man so getting the drop on him will be practically impossible. But Stephanie, though plagued by bad luck and some dumb errors in judgment, besides being a rank amateur, may surprise everyone and accidentally launch herself in a new and dangerous career.

This was a pretty good story. Though not as funny as the later books in the series, still it was entertaining. Somehow I never read the first book in the series and it was interesting to see how different the characters in the first book are from the later books. Joe comes across as kind of creepy and scary while Ranger, who in later novels becomes the creepy, scary one, seems a lot more talkative than he is in later books. But Grandma Mazur is the same wacky old broad she is in the later books. However, I think if I had read this book first I might not have continued to read the others in the series. What appeals to me in this series is the humor, and while this book has its moments, they are not as strong as in most of the later books.