Status
Series
Genres
Description
Fiction. Mystery. Romance. Humor (Fiction.) HTML: New secrets, old flames, and hidden agendas are about to send bounty hunter Stephanie Plum on her most outrageous adventure yet! MISTAKE #1 Dickie Orr Stephanie was married to him for about fifteen minutes before she caught him cheating on her with her archnemesis, Joyce Barnhardt. Another fifteen minutes after that, Stephanie filed for divorce, hoping never to see either one of them again. MISTAKE #2 Doing favors for super bounty hunter Carlos Manoso (aka Ranger) Ranger needs Stephanie to meet with Dickie and find out if he's doing something shady. Turns out, he is. Turns out, Dickie's also back to doing Joyce Barnhardt. And it turns out Ranger's favors always come with a price. . . . MISTAKE #3 Going completely nutso while doing the favor for Ranger, and trying to apply bodily injury to Dickie in front of the entire office Now Dickie has disappeared, and Stephanie is the natural suspect in his disappearance. Is Dickie dead? Can he be found? And can Stephanie Plum stay one step ahead in this new, dangerous game? Joe Morelli, the hottest cop in Trenton, New Jersey, is also keeping Stephanie on her toes�??-and he may know more than he's saying about many things in Stephanie's life. It's a cat-and-mouse game for Stephanie Plum wherein the ultimate prize might be her life. With Janet Evanovich's flair for hilarious situations, breathtaking action, and unforgettable characters, Lean Mean Thirteen shows why no one can beat Evanovich for blockbuster entertainment.… (more)
User reviews
For once, the resulting troubles from Stephanie’s professional
There is nothing much new in this thirteenth book; very little changes with life in the Burg – perhaps the point the author is making. And yet, Janet Evanovich, between the humour and hysteria, always manages to infer a true depth of feeling and a strong commitment to family and friends amongst this motley lot, thus ensuring the characters do not descend into mere caricature. There are some very clever allegories to irritations in real life (cable suppliers), some annoying, but necessary, plot continuations of old themes (another car bites the dust), but there are also many scenes which contain much merriment; the Lula-in-the-cemetery incident nearly making me choke, I was laughing so hard.
These books are not meant to be anything more than pure reading enjoyment, and as such, this instalment, if a little less humorous than previous episodes, is just as successful in this regard. As long as I am kept as entertained and amused, as long as I literally cackle with delight at some of the scenarios, and as long as I still hold interest in all the participants, I will continue to read these books. There are much worse pastimes than having a jolly good laugh.
This time, Stephanie's ex, lawyer Dickie Orr, goes missing, not long after Stephanie fought with him while planting a bug in his office for Ranger. And
Meanwhile, Joe's busy on a hush-hush assignment, Ranger's keeping an eye (and a GPS tracker) on Stephanie, and Steph and Lula are busy tracking down FTAs, including a hilariously wacky taxidermist with an explosive inventory.
I agree with all the reviewers who complain about a lack of character development (or rather, character change--I think the characters are pretty well developed at this point), and the repetitive nature of the books--cars getting destroyed, the love triangle, Grandma Mazur will do something wacky at the funeral home, etc., etc. The thing is, though: I just don't care. I read a Stephanie Plum book maybe once a year (twice, if there's a between-the-numbers book), so there are generally 300 or more books in between. So if it's exactly what I expected, I don't mind. It's become a formula, yes, but I enjoy the formula--once a year. I expect if I read them all back to back, it would drive me batty. But I don't, so I'm happy.
Carlos Manoso (aka Ranger). Boyfriend-Joe Morelli.
Got caught up in her ex's (Dickie Orr) law firm & the murders of some of the partners.