Look Alive Twenty-Five

Stephanie Plum is perpetually 32, one missed FTA away from not paying rent on her outdated apartment, and has dinner with her entire family on the calendar. If that weren't enough, her cousin/boss Vinnie Plum has made her the manager of the deli his father-in-law and bankroller, Harry the Hammer, now owns.  Normally, "deli manager" is a safer job than "bounty hunter," but as we learn in the first chapter of Look Alive Twenty-Five, the last three manager mysteriously disappeared, leaving only a shoe by the dumpster.

That's really all you need to know.  Janet Evanovich hasn't been concerned with her plots since the early double-digit installments of the series.  The last dozen or so have just been an excuse to string together comic destruction of cars and/or buildings, slapstick incompetence by Steph and her sidekick Lula, the cupcake-or-babe question of whether she should be with Joe or Ranger, and general weirdness.  The books have become routine, but they're still funny enough that reading them in public  puts you on the receiving end of serious side-eye, and Twenty-Five's plot is a bit tighter than the last few. It's a good beach read or antidote to crappy winter weather.