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Fiction. Mystery. Romance. Humor (Fiction.) HTML: #1 New York Times #1 Wall Street Journal #1 Los Angeles Times #1 Entertainment Weekly #1 Publishers Weekly Stephanie Plum is thinking her career as a fugitive apprehension agent has run its course. She's been shot at, spat at, cussed at, fire-bombed, mooned, and attacked by dogs. Time for a change, Stephanie thinks. Time to find the kind of job her mother can tell her friends about without making the sign of the cross. So Stephanie Plum quits. Resigns. No looking back. No changing her mind. She wants something safe and normal. As it turns out, jobs that are safe and normal for most people aren't necessarily safe and normal for Stephanie Plum. Trouble follows her, and the kind of trouble she had at the bail bonds office can't compare to the kind of trouble she finds herself facing now. Her past has come back to haunt her. She's stalked by a maniac returned from the grave for the sole purpose of putting her into a burial plot of her own. He's killed before, and he'll kill again if given the chance. Caught between staying far away from the bounty hunter business and staying alive, Stephanie reexamines her life and the possibility that being a bounty hunter is the solution rather than the problem. After disturbingly brief careers at the button factory, Kan Klean Dry Cleaners, and Cluck-in-a-Bucket, Stephanie takes an office position in security, working for Ranger, the sexiest, baddest bounty hunter and businessman on two continents. It might not be the job she'll keep for the rest of her life, but for now it gives her the technical access she needs to find her stalker. Tempers and temperatures rise as competition ratchets up between the two men in her lifeâ??-her on-again, off-again boyfriend, tough Trenton cop Joe Morelli, and her bad-ass boss, Ranger. Can Stephanie Plum take the heat? Can you? Between the adventure and the adversity there's attitude, and Stephanie Plum's got plenty in her newest misadventure from Janet Evanovich, Eleven on Top.… (more)
User reviews
a good one. It's pretty much the same formula, but like knowing exactly
where your cinnamon sugar is in the cabinet so if you get a craving for
cinnamon toast in the middle of the night, sometimes formulas are wonderful
things. Especially
Stephanie has decided to throw in the towel and quit Vinnie's Bail Bonds.
She's had it with rolling in the garbage, being shot at and missed, spit at
and hit, and she's just ready for a change in her life. She'd like a normal
job where you just go to work, get paid and go home like everybody else.
But after spectacularly brief "careers" at the button factory, the dry
cleaners and Cluck-In-A-Bucket, where she seems to be the target of hatred
from someone in her past who has returned from the dead to kill her. With a
little help from Ranger and Morelli, she's hot on the trail, but is it a
wild goose chase?
Ok, Cheryl was right (a little bit) about this back and forth between Ranger
and Morelli being tiresome after a while. But they are two such delicious
men, I'm not complaining. Stephanie will probably never get married anyway.
But this book was a lot of fun and I laughed all the way through it.
Grandma Mazur, Joe's grandmother Bella, Stephanie's wildly disfunctional
family, all combine to make this a great vacation of a book. Imagine
Grandma Mazur and Bella having a fist fight at Stiva's funeral home in the
middle of a veiwing.... Read this. Laugh. You know you want to.
High 5 for this one.
I started out thinking that I was wasting my time reading this book.. and ended up laughing out loud.
Do I recommend it? Well, if you are looking to improve your mind, forget this book. If you are looking for an entertaining, if improbable read... by all means, I do.
Stephanie Plum has had it with bounty hunting and quits.
I've only recently been converted to the Stephanie Plum fanclub but I think I want to be a lifetime member.
Not only are these books almost always delivering the funny, but Stephanie Plum is a great heroine. Unlike a lot of other detectives, Plum is
She can't get out of her own way and I love that.
I can definitely identify with the crowded house full of loud, unstable, working class relatives. I can identify with having to drive clunkers, work at jobs you hate, etc. She even eats badly! Which is rare in (non hardboiled)mysteries, especially mysteries catering to women, where the authors love to linger over tantalizing descriptions of lovingly prepared food. Plum lives in a world where she lusts after donuts, Tastykakes and pizza, and where people still eat pot roast (Faith Fairchild would *hate* it).
I love cooking, myself, but I think the market has an overabundance of what I call "cats'n cooking" mysteries. Stephanie Plum doesn't even have cat, she has a hampster.
This was a much better book than the last one if the Stephanie Plum series, the disappointing "Ten Big Ones". All the old favorite characters are here: Joe Morelli, Ranger, Grandma Mazur, Lula, and Albert Kloughn. There are many humorous scenes; especially funny is the confrontation between Stephanie's Grandma Mazur and Joe's Grandma (at a wake, naturally!); a scene featuring a missing facial mole; and a scene involving Stephanie, her mother, Grandma Mazur and a wedding cake, which causes Stephanie to give up sugar, causing Joe much suffering. Stephanie's attempts at her various short term jobs are equally hilarious.
What I liked about this book is how the characters have matured. Having Stephanie quit her job as a bounty hunter was a good move, opening up new storylines and forcing Evanovich to write something else besides the somewhat tired routines of Stephanie and Lula trying to catch FTA's. Evanovich does throw in a couple of bounty hunting scenes that easily could have been left out of the book, but perhaps she thought readers would be disappointed if they were to disappear altogether. Stephanie and Joe's relationship is also maturing, which I liked, even if it does lessen the sexual tension between Stephanie and Ranger. There was a real mystery as part of the plot. And, while some might find the blowing up of cars a bit old, I found some of the scenes funny, especially the attempt to blow up the Buick.
One last thought. While it's nice that Evanovich has a contest to let her readers name the next book in the series, I hate the "numbers" theme of these titles. The first three or four titles were somewhat amusing, but using numbers in each title is restricting and the titles have nothing to do with the books, which I find annoying.
Aside from that, I loved this book and highly recommend it.
Keep us guessing
From the get go, Stephanie thinks Spiro is back – so, from the get go, I hate it. I hated Spiro the first time, hated him this time.
This book stressed me out a little bit. I know I have a lot to look forward to when Mikey and I start planning our wedding, but Valerie and the Klaughn’s wedding stressed me out. If Mikey starts getting sloshed and staying at work, maybe we won’t get married either. Yikes.
I’m glad Stephanie finally decided to trade in her stun gun. Yes, I thought it was cool that she was a bounty hunter, but I really don’t want her to get killed. Ends up, crazier stuff happens when she has a desk job than when she was chasing the bad guys. Imagine that.
One thing I can’t stop thinking about, Mama Macaroni. She still scares me … and her mole, I keep dreaming about Moley Moley Moley! Not cool!
I need something huge to happen and stick in my mind in the next couple of books. They’re good, but they’re all running together. So, for that reason, I only give Eleven on Top 2 bookmarks.