And here I Though Thirteen Was the Unlucky Number!

There are some names you just simply don't associate with the Martha Stewart lifestyle - you know: frilly curtains, tons of throw pillows, crocheted tea cozies, and potpourri. One such name is Stephanie Plum; big-haired gum-crackin' tight-jeans-wearin' slightly slutty bounty hunter from Trenton. That's in Joisey. Heck, Steph can't even spell "potpourri"... So how is it all of a sudden that Stephanie is looking just a little bit on the domesticated side? And, horror of horrors, so is Lula!? Small wonder that the street teams are all over the 'net dumping on Janet Evanovich and her latest Plum novel, Fearless Fourteen.


It begins like any other Stephanie Plum adventure, though mis-adventure would, as usual, be more accurate. The intrepid duo of Steph and Lula head out to bring in one of several harmless bail skips to be rebonded. This time, it's Loretta, distant cousin of Steph's main squeeze (at least this installment) Morelli - not unusual, since most of Trenton's "Burg" is distantly related to Morelli. When the single mom asks Steph to watch her adolescent son Mario, aka "Zook," until she gets out of lockup, little does Steph know that a couple of hours of babysitting can expand into something much closer to motherhood than she and Rex the hamster have ever shared. Seems Loretta's wild-eyed brother Dom just got out of prison after ten years for armed robbery - a robbery from which nine million dollars is still missing. Steph's first clue that something weird (or weirder than usual, one supposes) is going on is the dead guy in Morelli's basement.

Speaking of weird, it looks like retired 'ho' Lula will be redoing her two-sizes-too-small Spandex® wardrobe in white come June: she's engaged to be married to Rangeman muscle Tank, though for some reason Tank doesn't remember asking her... And Steph's gotten herself mixed up with fading rock-star Brenda (one name, like Madonna or Cher), whose latest project is a reality show about female bounty hunters. If it's strange and it's going on in the Burg, you can bet Steph's involved... or her Grandma Mazur is: in this case, Grandma (aka "Scorch," 'cause she's so hot) has gone Goth and become a potato gunner to protect Morelli's house from treasure hunters.

It's not all fun and games, octogenarian flashers, antisocial monkeys, and naked cowgirls notwithstanding. Someone's sending Steph amputatued toes (complete with red toneail polish) in the mail and, with Zook's mom missing, our heroine fears the worst. It's full-speed ahead and damn the exploding dye packs as Steph, between unprecedented bouts of domesticity, must find the missing robbers - not to mention the missing nine million - to save the rest of Loretta's toes. And maybe her head...


If the truth be told, Janet Evanovich has done better than Fearless Fourteen. Heck, the rest of the double-digit installments in her "by-the-numbers" series are better; one has to go all the way back to Seven Up to find one that's this far off. The action's not exactly heart-pounding, but then, when is it ever heart-pounding in the Stephanie Plum series? Yet something is missing from the lineup this time around... what could it be? Let's see: Grandma Mazur's on the scene... Steph hits the Cluck-in-a-Bucket... Steph and Morelli swap some bodily fluids... Lula's outrageous... there's a meal shared at the Plum household... Bob the dog poops up a thong... Ranger's hot and mysterious... nope, nothing missing. On the other hand, it could be that there's just not very much of the things that make the Plum series fun: not a single funeral parlor scene with Grandma... almost no references to weak knees when Ranger breathes "Babe" on the nape of Steph's neck... no Vinnie...

Wait. That's it: we'd never realized it before, but the center of gravity of the Stephanie Plum series is cousin Vinnie, the bail bondsman - and he's on vacation! No wonder this particular installment seems lackluster and plodding... well, maybe that's not it. Maybe it's just the Evanovich spent too much ink on having Steph babysitting Zook, and not enough on the kind of hi-jinks that turn her face blue, make it a 50:50 chance that any vehicle in her vicinity is about to explode, and cause pizzas to drop willy-nilly from the sky. Yeah, that's the ticket: a domesticated Stephanie Plum is as boring as... as... as Martha Stewart. Heck, even Martha ended up in stir!


If you've read any other reviews of the book, especially those published before the volume hit the shelves in July, 2008; you may have noticed lots of grumbling about Ranger's absence and the repetition of "entire passages from earlier novels," in particular number eleven. Someone definitely needs to get a clue - Ranger is definitely not gone (just a wee bit absent) and fer goshsakes, is there really someone out there so crazed as to scour this novel and all the others looking for duplicated verbiage? No, someone doesn't need a clue; someone needs a life!

All in all, not the best of the Plum series; but cries of "I'll never read a Stephanie Plum novel again!" are very likely premature. I'm betting that Evanovich can turn this puppy around; turn it around a lot better than Steph can turn Morelli's dog.