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Stephanie Plum is perpetually 32, one missed FTA away from not paying rent on her outdated apartment, and has dinner with her entire family on the calendar.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.

Plum Lucky

How can I review Plum Lucky?  Stephanie is not a deep character, and Janet Evanovich's between-the-numbers novels are short and fluffy.  It's tightly plotted enough to get past the silliness, with the slightly scatty but ultimately sane Stephanie Plum holding everything together.

On St. Patrick's Day, Grandma Mazur 'finds' a duffel bag full of cash.  So, like the 72-year-old juvenile delinquent she is, Grandma decides to buy an RV and head to Atlantic City, bringing along angry little person Randal Briggs as a bodyguard and driver.  Unfortunately, the money actually belongs to a gangster named Lou Devina.  Also on the trail of the money is Snuggy, a jockey-turned-bank robber who talks to animals and is on a mission to save a race horse, the supernatural bounty hunter Diesel, and Stephanie whose mother has threatened to cut off her supply of pot roast and pineapple upside down cake if she doesn't bring her grandmother back Right Now.  Along for the ride are Lula, the hooker-turned-file-clerk who kept her wardrobe when she changed professions and Connie Rosolli, the Jersey-girl receptionist at Vincent Plum Bail Bonds who packs a lot of attitude and a semi-automatic pistol.  Of course they find Grandma and recover the money and even save the horse, but that's not really the point.  The plot exists only to tie together the set pieces, including Lula creating a diversion by throwing nickles on the ground...while wearing gold lame spandex that's shorter, lower cut, and tighter than usual, and a few jokes about the bodily functions of quadrupeds. It's fluffy fun, not to be read on public transit unless you're trying to get a three-seat for yourself.