The Heist

 

By Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg

Book One in the Fox and O'Hare series

Kate O'Hare is a gung-ho FBI agent with a military background and a burning desire to capture wanted conman Nicolas Fox. Fox has been a thorn in her side for a long time, always managing to elude her best efforts and taunting her with Toblerone candy bars and otherwise making her look like a fool.

By stepping up her game in a drastic and dangerous way, Kate finally nails Nick and he is locked up until his trial. The day of his trial, Nick escapes while using the courthouse men's room. Imagine Kate's astonishment at Nick once again being on the loose after all the months she spent trying to capture him. Imagine her even greater astonishment when she learns his escape was engineered by her boss at the FBI and by the deputy director of the FBI.

Did Nick Fox somehow corrupt two top FBI officials? No. It is all part of a plan to track down and capture some of the worst criminals in the world, using Nick's genius at pulling off brilliant heists and complex scams. And they want Kate to be part of the operation. Which means she will be working very closely with the man who has been getting under her skin for a very long time. And it doesn't help that Nick is witty, charming and very handsome.

This book was so much fun! I thoroughly enjoyed it. The heists are complicated and wild and Kate and Nick have a spicy and uncertain relationship. I'm sorry I am just now discovering this fun and exciting series which began with this novel in 2013.

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

Hard Eight

 

By Janet Evanovich

Stephanie is off on another adventure, this time to help out a neighbor who posted a bond for her daughter and now the daughter has gone missing and the neighbor is in danger of losing her home that she used as collateral for the bond. 

The missing woman, Evelyn, has a creepy landlord who suspects she stole a valuable artifact from him. And he thinks Stephanie knows where Evelyn is hiding and proceeds to threaten Stephanie with all kinds of dirty tricks, including leaving the body of Evelyn's estranged spouse in Stephanie's apartment. Of course Stephanie's car gets destroyed, a running gag in the Stephanie Plum novels.

Morelli and Stephanie are on the outs in this story and so she turns to the implacable Roger for help. She is going to have to pay a price for his help, but the price is one she had been rather looking forward to paying.

This was a fun and exciting story, if a bit gruesome at some points. Things get a bit rough, there's some torture and some dismemberment. But the wacky characters go a long ways to lighten up the story a lot.

Notorious Nineteen

By Janet Evanovich

Stephanie is after another bail skip, this time for a man accused of stealing $5,000,000.  While out on bond, the accused became ill with appendicitis and had to have his appendix removed. But he vanished from the hospital after the surgery. The mystery is that no one saw him leave. Nor did any of the security cameras show him leaving either.
Besides the main quest, Stephanie has two side quests. Track down a wooden tiki god that was pledged as collateral for a bond and help Ranger deal with an unknown person who has a vendetta against Ranger.
With the help of Lula, Grandma and the tiki god, Stephanie cracks the case, with Ranger doing most of the heavy lifting.

This was an OK read. The Stephanie Plum books have gotten very formulaic. The main character is still pretty much incompetent at her job, still lives in her apartment with her hamster and is still stringing along both Ranger and Morelli, the cop who is her other love interest. And her car is still getting destroyed. In other words, the Stephanie Plum stories have become stagnant. Too bad. It was fun in the beginning but now it has become too predictable.

Fearless Fourteen

By Janet Evanovich

Another in the Stephanie Plum series. Stephanie is a bounty hunter. She tracks down people who have missed their court date and hauls them back to jail. She is not a trained law enforcement officer, she is just a woman who needed a job and was able to land one with her cousin Vinnie who owns the bail bond company.
Stephanie has an on-again, off-again relationship with Joe Morelli, who is a cop. In this book, the relationship is definitely on, with Stephanie spending most nights at Joe's house. But while she is sleeping with Joe, she still has eyes for Ranger, who owns a security company and he sometimes throws work her way. In this story, Stephanie is body guarding an aging star who is making an appearance in Trenton. But this is just a side story to the main story, which is about a long-ago bank robbery.
Joe's house used to belong to his aunt, but when she died she left the house to Joe, something that Joe's cousin Dom didn't anticipate when he hid a very valuable set of keys in her basement, keys to a garage and a van full of nine million dollars stolen in a bank robbery by Dom and his gang. Now that Dom is out of prison, he is looking to find those keys and finally split the money with the rest of the gang. Dom took the fall for the robbery while the other members of the gang remained free and anonymous.
So now Dom is angry at Joe for usurping his inheritance, for shtupping his sister Loretta, and for standing between Dom and the nine million. But when the dead bodies start to pile up, it turns out Dom is not to blame and that someone in the gang has turned against his fellows. And as per usual, Stephanie manages to find herself smack in the middle of all the action.

This was a pretty good story and lots of fun, despite the body count. Stephanie manages to get herself dyed blue while searching for a clue to the whereabouts of the money and a potato gun plays a significant role in foiling the guy out to get all the money for himself. Lulu is there to help in her usual outrageous outfits and also giving her boyfriend Tank the heebee-jeebies when she tries to finagle him into marriage. All in all, it is another excellent and fun addition to the Stephanie Plum saga.

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.

Finger Lickin' Fifteen

By Janet Evanovich

Another in the Stephanie Plum series, this one finds her friend Lula on a killer's hit list when she witnesses a hit. A famous chef comes to Trenton to participate in a barbecue cook-off but he is beheaded by a giggling maniac and cohort right in front of Lula's eyes and naturally the killers want to kill the witness. Usually Stephanie is the one being chased but this time Lula is getting all the unwanted attention, including getting shot at, having her apartment broken into, and having her Firebird bombed. Of course, Stephanie being Stephanie, some of Lula's bad luck rubs off on her, including having one of Ranger's loaner cars burned up, having her apartment set on fire, and other fun things. Meanwhile, the barbecue contest sponsor is offering a million dollar reward for info leading to the arrest of the killers of their star chef and Lula has decided she wants that reward. Together she and Stephanie's Grandma Mazur enter the barbecue contest thinking it will lead them to the killers. They have to try to create a barbecue sauce for the contest that doesn't give its victim the runs, which they haven't managed to do so far. In the process they set the backyard on fire, give food poisoning to several people and explode a pressure cooker full of barbecue sauce in Stephanie's kitchen. No wonder Stephanie is spending a lot of time at Ranger's place.
Ranger is having problems too. Some of his security business clients have been robbed and it looks like it might have been by someone working for Ranger. So he asks Stephanie to help him figure out who the culprit may be. She gets to spend a lot of time at Ranger's, which is OK with her because, once again, she is on the outs with on again, off again boyfriend Joe Morelli.
Throw in the usual wacky bond skips that Stephanie and Lula go after and it makes for another grand and very enjoyable entry in the Stephanie Plum series.

Lean Mean Thirteen

By Janet Evanovich

Thirteenth in the Stephanie Plum series, this one finds Stephanie under suspicion for the disappearance of her ex-husband, Dickie. Stephanie pays Dickie a visit at his office and she goes ballistic when she sees a photo of her archenemy, Joyce, on Dickie's desk. She has to be dragged off Dickie and shortly there after Dickie vanishes and of course Stephanie is the number one suspect.
With the help of the enigmatic Ranger, Stephanie investigates Dickie's disappearance and also brings in a couple of bail skips, including a taxidermist who specializes in exploding rodents and a roving tax accountant slash grave robber. Grandma Mazur makes a few appearances as do Lula and Joe Morelli, all recurring characters in the series.

I enjoyed this story, although not as much as I have the earlier novels. These later novels just do not have as light a touch as the first ones in the series have. But this was still a good read.

Plum Lovin'

By Janet Evanovich

Another aside in the Stephanie Plum series, this novel takes up where the previous aside, Visions of Sugar Plums, left off. In addition, this story adds an important family event to the Stephanie Plum saga, in that Stephanie's sister Valerie finally marries Albert Kloughn, thanks to Stephanie's maneuverings. In fact, that is what Plum does through out the story, helps people find love. The semi-divine Diesel pops back into Stephanie's life and pretty much dragoons her into playing Cupid while he tracks down the woman who normally fulfills that role because she has gone missing.
What can I say about these, as the author calls them, "Stephanie Plum Between-the-Numbers Novels"? They just don't measure up to the regular Stephanie Plum novels and I find the supernatural stuff disconcerting in this detective novel series. Unless you are desperate for a story about Stephanie Plum, you probably aren't missing much if you give these a skip.

Review from Publishers Weekly:   https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-312-30634-2.

Twelve Sharp

By Janet Evanovich

A Stephanie Plum novel in which you find out a bit more about the mysterious Ranger, a cool dude who does the more dangerous bond skips for the bond place Stephanie works for. Ranger and Stephanie have a history and, although she loves Joe, her cop boyfriend, she is still very turned on by Ranger, and he knows it. But now Ranger is missing and his wife shows up in Jersey looking for him with blood in her eye. She comes gunning for Stephanie, believing that she is involved with Ranger. Next thing you know the wife is dead and Ranger's daughter has been kidnapped and the prime suspect is Ranger. Stephanie gets back to her place only to find Ranger hiding out in her apartment. He needs Stephanie's help to clear his name and to find out who really has taken his little girl.

It's interesting to see Evanovich's development of the Ranger character, who has evolved from the macho man of mystery to a guy that has a family, an ex-wife and a young daughter. I do wish, though, that the Stephanie character would be more self-reliant and less in need of being rescued from the bad guys she keeps running into. Still, overall, it was an exciting and enjoyable novel.

Visions of Sugar Plums

By Janet Evanovich

A Stephanie Plum novel, with a Christmas twist, it starts out with a supernatural being materializing in Stephanie's little apartment. He is a studly-looking fellow named Diesel who claims to be the spirit of Christmas. He never really explains what he wants from her, although he does like to make lewd innuendos; all he does is tag along with Plum as she chases bond skips. This time she is after an old toymaker called Sandy Claws.

OK, I guess this is Janet Evanovich's attempt to tell a Christmas story. All I can say is, she fails. This story makes no sense, it doesn't have a gooey moralistic Christmas ending and I never understood what Diesel wanted with Plum. Towards the end, you find out Diesel is also a bounty hunter and the guy he is after is the current beau of Plum's Grandma. So shouldn't the person he hangs around with be the old broad not Stephanie? This story just didn't work for me.

Review from Publishers Weekly:    https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-312-30632-8.

Full House

By Janet Evanovich

This story is a cross between a mystery novel and a romance.
Billie Pearce, a respectable mother in her thirties, decides to take polo lessons. The polo teacher, millionaire Nick Kaharchek, can tell right away that Billie can barely ride a horse, much less play polo on one. He feels sorry for her ineptitude after the lesson is over and helps her dismount in the stable. Nick's old girlfriend is there and makes it clear that she is still interested in Nick. After the old girlfriend leaves, Billie's horse steps on her foot and Nick has to take Billie to the hospital. That's the romance part.
The mystery part involves a young cousin of Nick's who likes to blow stuff up and a pest control guy who can't seem to control the pests in Billie's house.

This book was in the mystery section so I wasn't expecting it to be a romance novel. That is what I got, however, with a little mystery thrown in. I didn't really care for the novel. It was just too contrived.
I had read this book before but it made so little impression on me that I didn't realize it till I was about a third into it this time.

Review from Publishers Weekly:    https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-312-98327-7.

Eleven on Top

By Janet Evanovich

Another in the Stephanie Plum series. Stephanie decides she has had enough. Enough of chasing bad guys. Enough of rolling in garbage trying to capture the bad guys. It's dirty and dangerous and she is sick of doing it. She quits her bond enforcement job and tries finding a normal one. The first job she shows up more than an hour late the first day. She then gets a job working at a fast food joint but somehow that place burns down. She gets a job at a dry cleaners but her boss ends up blown to little bitty pieces. Then she gets her dream job...working for Ranger at his company Rangeman. Even though Ranger also does bond enforcement, this new job is a desk job running security background checks by computer. And yet somehow Stephanie ends up locked in casket and facing certain death... Another madcap & enjoyable Stephanie Plum adventure. If you are a fan of the series you'll like this one too.