One for the MoneyA Stephanie Plum Novel

Like Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone, Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum is a heroine whose destiny is to star in a high-profile series of mystery books — now well into the double digits. But the hapless Plum is anything but a professional, and she lives in the decidedly non-elite city of Trenton, New Jersey. Unemployed and in major debt after being laid off from the local lingerie factory, she decides to take a job with her cousin Vinnie's bail bonding office. Her first assignment: to find and capture Joe Morelli — the guy who popped her cherry on the floor of a cannoli bakery; also the guy she happened to later slam with her car when she "accidentally" lost control of it. Now a vice cop, Morelli has been implicated on a murder charge. With the promise of $10,000 and a few lessons in criminal nabbing from her colleague Ranger spurring her on, Plum sets out on her bounty-hunting mission. A cartoon-like chase with Morelli ensues, with brief interludes for car theft and stuffed cabbage dinners at Plum's parents' house. As Stephanie investigates further, she encounters a sociopathic boxer named Benito Ramirez and he promptly begins harassing her, making the dangers of her new job seem all too real. Evanovich's storytelling cruises on comic energy and halts for tense, fearful revelations. As the determined Stephanie pushes on, this well-crafted novel delivers major bangs for the bucks.