Book Review: One For The Money

One for the Money by Janet Evanovich

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I love the Stephanie Plum novels as a rule. This series makes me actually laugh out loud. Whenever Stephanie goes over to her parents for supper, something is bound to happen, courtesy of Grandma Mazur more times than not. I finally got around to reading the first in this series and I'm glad I did.

Stephanie Plum is out of work and getting desperate for money. Her car is about to be repo'ed, she has been pawning off her stuff to pay her bills, and the rent is coming due again soon. Running out of options, she hears about a filing job at her cousin Vinny's bail bonds shop and reluctantly goes down there to apply. The position has already been filled, but Vinny's secretary tells Stephanie that the real money is in bounty hunting; why, they have one right here that is worth $10,000 if she's interested in it.

Meet Joe Marelli, an ex vice cop who is wanted for murder and who has jumped bail. Stephanie knows Joe intimately well - or she used to when they were teenagers - and Vinny gives her one week to catch him or else he will give the file to someone else. Being that Stephanie has no clue how to be a bounty hunter, she gets in touch with the best in the business, Ricardo Manoso a.k.a. Ranger, to give her a crash course in hunting fugitives. Before the end of the book, Stephanie manages to steal a car (or, as she calls it, "commandeer" a car), get shot at, almost get blown up, and punched in the face by a stalker.

There is quite a cast of characters in this book - an insane boxing world heavyweight champion and his head-in-the-sand manager, a couple of hookers named Lula and Jackie, and of course Stephanie's parents and grandma Mazur. It's quite a rollercoaster ride and a lot of fun.

4 stars out of 5


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Book Review: Divine Evil

Divine Evil by Nora Roberts

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Clare Kimball is a famous sculptress when she returns to her hometown of Emmitsboro, Maryland to confront the ghosts of her past. She moves into the family home, the site of her father's suicide. Although a lot of the town has stayed the same in the years since Clare left, many things have changed. The wild and rebellious Cameron Rafferty is now the town sheriff and he has his own demons to face. An old grave of a baby is dug up in the cemetary and the dirt hauled away. A runaway teenage girl is missing, last spotted just outside of Emmitsboro; only problem is, no one saw this girl anywhere in town. Then a gruesome murder happens to someone Cam knows only too well. It doesn't take long for Clare's past to come crashing down around these two either. Clare finds out that her father may have been involved in a cult and that maybe his death wasn't a suicide or accident after all. The more time Clare and Cam spend together, the closer they become and the more nervous they make certain people in town. Because while on the surface Emmitsboro may look like Mayberry, it is hiding a very dark evil secret. And someone will go to any lengths to keep that secret hidden.



Overall, it was an okay book. I did figure out who most of the people involved in the cult were before they were revealed, but I did not guess the real ringleader - that was a shocker to me.



3 stars out of 5


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Book Review: Trace

Trace by Patricia Cornwell

My review

rating: 1 of 5 stars
This book wasn't as good as I was hoping it would be. The Last Precinct was a better read. There wasn't much action in this one, the characters weren't fleshed out very well at all, and the capture of the bad guy was very, very anti-climactic. I didn't even care much for Scarpetta in this book; her niece Lucy seemed to be a self-absorbed rich b***h; I don't know why she put certain characters in with others (she has Benton in Aspen "babysitting" Lucy's employee, who was attacked in Lucy's home). There is no resolution of a feud between Scarpetta and Virginia's new chief medical examiner, and really no hint that this will be re-visited in a future book (maybe she resolves it in another novel, I haven't heard). This book was quite a let down all the way around.


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