I've written about Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books before, and that's just as good a place as any to get the scoop if you are unfamiliar with the series. Check out my post for Books 11-14 and Book 15 before continuing.
The funny thing about Evanovich's novels is that I thoroughly enjoy reading them and then promptly forget what they are about almost as soon as I set them aside. It's been a few weeks since I read Sixteen and Seventeen, so all I haveare some vague associations of Stephanie's scuzzy cousin/boss getting kidnapped, the bail bonds office being burned down, Stephanie flirting with Ranger and Morreli, and Lula and grandma Mazur making me laugh hysterically. Along the way a lot of friend chicken and donuts are consumed.
And, really, that's just about perfect for summer reading, don't you think?
I've posted entries about a number of books from Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, so if you are in need of the back story, take a few minutes to visit these earlier entries: Troublemaker (entry 25) and Eleven on Top, Twelve Sharp, Lean Mean Thirteen, and Fearless Fourteen (entries 38-41). As I do when reading every book about the hapless Jersey bail bonds agent, while reading Fifteen I alternately found myself wondering why I was reading such silly stuff and laughing hysterically. I've said it before: for simple fun reading, you can't beat this series.
In Fifteen the caper includes a barbecue contest, a maniac with a cleaver, and a serial arsonist. But really, who cares? The pleasure here is in the regular cast of characters, silly incidents, and zingy one-liners. I smile just thinking about it and plan to upload Sizzling Sixteen soon.
In the world of ChickLit, I'd say that Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series comes out near the top of the pack. It's Bridget Jones meets Kinsey Milhone (a la Sue Grafton's alphabet series), set in Jersey to a sitcom laugh track.
Oh, wait. That's me laughing.
There are few books that make me laugh out loud--Adams's Hitchhiker series and Gaiman and Pratchett's Good Omens are the only others that come to mind right now--but these books set me off regularly. It's certainly not highbrow humor, either, as the laughs usually come from the least sophisticated characters in a completely unsophisticated cast, and the funny situations involve accidental shootings, sex, exploding cars, funeral homes, and rolling in food. And, not infrequently, all of these at once.
Stehanie Plum is a Jersey girl, raised in the Italian neighborhood called the Burg. Having failed in her first mariage and her first post-college job, she becomes a bond enforcement agent for her cousin Vinnie. She's the least-likely bounty hunter you could imagine, and it's almost accidental when she manages to bring someone who's skipped bail in for rebooking. The two funniest characters in the series are Stephanie's Grandma Mazur--a gun-toting, funeral-attending outspoken senior citizen--and her sidekick Lula--an ex 'ho who crams her size-16 African American body into size-10 leopard-print lycra. Add two sexy men (a cop and a bounty hunter/security company owner), her parents and her sister's family (including a ten-year old niece who thinks she is a horse), and a number of other eccentric characters, and I laugh my way through the books.
I always enjoy Janet Evanovich's Stephaine Plum novels, in which a Jersey-girl-turned-bounty-hunter stumbles in and out of trouble, accompanied by her ex-prostitute, spandex wearing sidekick, balancing attraction for a longtime flame/cop and a dangerous, top-of-the-line bounty hunter, dodging bullets and explosions--and, upon occasion, catching a bad guy. I try not to read Stephanie Plum novels in public, lest my frequent bursts of laughter lead passersby to think I am mentally unbalanced.
So, when I heard that Evanovich had teamed up with her daughter to write a graphic novel, I was immediately interested. When it was released, I learned that the book is actually the third in Evanovich's Alex Barnaby series--the first two, Metro Girl and Motor Mouth, printed in standard print form. Undaunted, I read that the book is a good stand alone as well, not depending on the previous two novels.
It's that last statement that I now dispute, and I wish I had read the other two books before reading Troublemaker. The book isn't without its charms, but it doesn't take the time to introduce the characters or premise as a first issue of a comic does. The reader is simply presented with characters and an improbable plot and expected to go with it. Slowly I figured out that Alex is a auto mechanic and spotter for the handsome love interest, Sam Hooker, but I never felt like I understood the relationship or the personalities of the duo to understand how they would end up involved in voodoo-related kidnapping in the swamps on Miami. Fans of the earlier two books will likely enjoy this a bit more, and I may come back to it--and to the second graphic novel release in the series--once I've read them. For now, though, I'm going to pick up where I left off with Stephanie Plum (around book 11, I think).
And laugh in public.
