Four To Score by Janet Evanovich

Four To Score by Janet Evanovich

Year Published: 1998
My Rating: 5 stars
313 pages

This is the fourth book in the Stephanie Plum series.

Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is after Maxine Nowicki for jumping bail on stealing her ex-boyfriends car. Little does Stephanie know, it gets deeper.. With the help of her backup ex-prostitute named Lula, a cross-dressing drag queen named Sally Sweet who is the puzzle solver, some help from Grandma Mazur and the dangerously handsome vice-cop Joe Morelli :)

As usual Stephanie gets into trouble, has some mishaps with her car and apartment and has someone looking forward to killing her.

More tension between Staphanie and Joe since she had to move in with him temporarly because she didn't have a place to stay. Then rumors run like fire around the Burg.

Really funny book that I enjoyed very much. Stephanie and Joe are starting to grow on me, Grandma Mazur is GREAT.. Lula is a bundle of fun, even the new Sally is interesting. And Ranger is the SHIT as Lula refers to him :)

Quotes I enjoyed from the book:

Vinnie was 5'7", looked like a weasel, thought like a weasel, smelled like a French whore and was once in love with a duck.

"You were trying to get in touch with me?"

"Yeah, I lost your card. I put it down somewhere and couldn't find it. so I looked you up in the phone book...only I got your parents. Good thing, too. Granny told me you're hard up for a man, and it turns out I'm between women right now, and I don't mind older cicks. so I guess this is your lucky day."

The chick made a valient effort not to stab her fork into Eddie Kuntz's eyeball.

"If Mickey Mouse could fly he'd be Donald Duck."

"I though there'd be wanted posters on the walls and gun racks filled with shotguns."

"This isn't dodge City," Lula said. "We got some class here. We keep the guns in the back room with the pervert."

I'd been replaced by a raspberry Popsicle, and Morelli didn't look all that unhappy. I, on the other hand, wanted to smash something. Morelli was right... I wanted him bad. He might have been right about the curtains too, but I didn't want to dwell on the curtains. Lust I could manage, but the very thought of wanting a relationship with Morelli made my blood run cold.

Sally's mascared lashes snapped open. "The Buick? Holy shit, is this your car? It's got portholes. Fucking portholes! What's under the hood."

"A V-eight."

"Yow! A W-eight! A fucking V-eight!"

"Good thing he don't have them tuck underpants on," Lula said. "He'd rupture himself."

"Day my make, punk," Grandma said.

I'm a firm believer in denial. My reasoning is why deal with uppleasantness today when you could get hit by a bus tomorrow. And if you procrastinate long enough, maybe the issue will go away.

It was a small bungalow. All on one floor. Easy to see Maxine wasn't there. "Looks like you're packing."

"Yeah, I'm cleaning out my Dior stuff. I decided I was only wearing Versace from now on."

My eye started to twitch, and I put my finger to it. you see? That's what Morelli does to me...gives me an eye twitch.

Better to live with my parents than Morelli. If I could just make it through a few weeks with my parents, I could move back into my own apartment, and then my life will get back to normal. And then my eye will stop twitching.

Three To Get Deadly by Janet Evanovich

Three To Get Deadly by Janet Evanovich

Year Published: 1997
My Rating: 5 stars
321 pages

This is the third book in the Stephanie Plum series.

Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is on the hunt again. She becomes persona non grata for looking for the local candystore owner Uncle Mo who does nothing wrong according to everyone she asks, but has jumped bail. She then starts tumbling on dead bodies of drug dealers everywhere she seems to go looking!

She then gets threatened by guys with ski masks who want her to step away from all the action that is happening.

All this with the help of Lula the ex-ho that's working as a file clerk at Vinnie's office. She is hillarous!!!

I enjoyed this book even more than the one before, Stephanie and Joe seem to be getting closer and closer with so much tension in the air. Grandma Mazur is incredibly funny, plus she gets a man and invites him to dinner with the family.

I'm already reading the next book.. Don't know when I'll halt this series and go check other books, but for now I feel I need a bit of comedy and light reading so I'm sticking to this one.

Quotes I enjoyed from the book:

I glances over at Connie. "There isn't anything else I should know, is there? Like, was he armed when arrested?

"Nothing out of the ordinary," Connie said. "A forty-five, a twenty-two and a seven-inch blade."

My voice pitched to incredulity. "Two guns and a knife? Forget it! What do I look like, a suicide waiting to happen?"

He was six hours over on a five o'clock shadow. Even in the darkened barroom I could see the tiny network of lines that appeared around his eyes when he was tired. He slouched with one elbow on the bar and picked at my fries.

"If you had a decent sex life you wouldn't need to gratify yourself like this," he said, his mouth curved into a grin, his teeth white and even against the dark beard.

"My sex life is ok."

"Yeah," Morelli said. "But sometimes it's fun to have a partner."

Ranger stripped off his sweatshirt. "adequate is being able to run five miles. how are you going to catch the bad guys if you can't outrun them?"

"Connie gives the bad guys who can run to you. I get the fat, out-of-shape bad guys."

"You're a walking disaster. A man would have to be a total masochist to be interested in you."

Ranger did a lap and jogged by us without acknowledgment of our presence or lack of.
"So why are you really here?" I asked Lula.
Lula's eyes never left Ranger. "I'm here 'cause he's the shit."
"The shit?"
"Yeah, you know...the shit. The king. The cool."
"Do we know anyone else who's the shit?"
"John Travolta. He's the shit, too."
We watched Ranger some, and I could see her point about Ranger being the shit.
"I've been thinking," Lula said. "Suppose there really were superheroes?"
"Like Batman?"
"That's it. That's what I'm saying. It'd be someone who was the shit."

Two For The Dough by Janet Evanovich

Two For The Dough by Janet Evanovich

Year Published: 1996
My Rating: 5 stars
336 pages

This is the second book in the Stephanie Plum series.

Bounty hunter stephanie Plum is back and is assigned to catch an insane ex-Army Kenny Mancuso, after he jumped his bail. He has shot his best friend and seems to have turned wealthy all of a sudden.
While doing that she is assigned to look for missing caskets from a funeral parlor. With the help of Grandma Mazur who seems always ready to visit a funeral viewing any time of the day.
All this with vice-cop Joe Morelli watching over her shoulder while bumping in him every turn of the way.

She then starts receiving embaled missing body parts as a warning for her to mind her own business and stay away, threatening not only her but even the people she holds dear.

This book was a real page turner that was so much fun with a lot of laugh out loud moments. The tension between Stephanie and Joe is a lot of fun, having you wondering what might happen next.
Grandma Mazur is a bundle of laughs, with her quirky ideas and fun moves.
It's been a while since I read the first book but I fell into this one so fast that it made me wonder what kept me away from this series so long. I already started the next book in the series too!

Quotes I enjoyed from the book:

In the burg it is possible to be born into bumhood. The Morelli and Mancuso women are above reprouch, but the men are jerks. They drink, they cuss, they slap their kids around and cheat on their wives and girlfriends.

We had warm homemade apple pie for desert. The apples were tart and cinnamony. The crust was flaky and crisp with a sprinkling of sugar. I ate two pieces and almost had an orgasm. "You should open a bakery," I said to my mother. "You could make a fortune selling pies."

"Look at that skirt,: my mother said when she opened the door to me. "It's no wonder we have so much crime today what with these short skirts. How can you sit in a skirt like that? Everyone can see everything?"

"It's two inches above my knee. It's not that short."

"I haven't got all day to stand here talking about skirts," Grandma Mazur said. "I got to get to the funeral parlor. I gotta see how they laid this guy out. I hope they didn't smooth over those bullet holes too good."

"Don't get your hopes up," I told Grandma Mazur. "I think this will be closed coffin."

Morelli turned my suit collar up against the chill air. His knuckeles brushed my neck, and his gaze lingered on my mouth. "You have a nice family," he said.

I narrowed my eyes. "If you kiss me I'll scream, and then my father will come out and punch you in the nose." And before any of those things happened, I'd probably wet my pants.

"You know that new file clerk we just hired?"

"Sally Something."

"Yeah. Sally Who Knew the Alphabet."

I looked around the office. "she seems to be missing."

"You bet she's missing. Your cousin Vinnie caught her at a forty-five-degree angle in front of the D drawer and tried to play hide the salami."

Morelli gave me a boy, are you stupid or what look. "I understand they have positions available for makeover ladies at Macy's"

"Don't start with the makeover stuff again. So I made a mistake."

"Cookie, you're making a career out of making mistakes."

"It's my style. And don't call me Cookie."

Some people learn from books, some listen to the advice of others, some learn from mistakes. I fit into the last catgory. So sue me. At least I rarely made the same mistake twice... with the possible exception of Morelli. Morelli had this habit of periodically screwing up my life. And I had a habit of letting him do it.

"Going to be a threesome," I told him. "You and me and Morelli."

"He there now?" Ranger wanted to know.

"Yeah"

"You naked?"

"No."

"Still early," Ranger said.

I heard the disconnect, amd I hung up.

Connie was smiling ear to ear. "I figure she can handle Vinnie."

"Yeah," Lula said. "He try anything with me, and I'll stomp pn the little motherfucker. He mess with a big woman like me, and he be nothin' more than a smelly spot on the carpet."

The phone rang at seven. I squinted at the clock and then at the phone. There is no such thing as a good call at 7 A.M. It's been my experience that all calls between the hours of 11 P.M. and 9 A. M. are disaster calls.

What did a kiss on the forehead mean, anyway? Nothing, I told myself. It didn't mean anything at all. It meant that sometimes Morelli could be a nice guy. Okay, so why was I smiling like an idiot? Becasue I was deprived. My love life was nonexistent. I shared an apartment with a hamster. Well, I thought it could be worse.