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Two For The Dough by Janet Evanovich
The Blurb On The Back:
This one’s double the fun!
Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is still learning the ropes at her cousin VInne’s bail bond office, so when she sets out on the trail of Kenny Mancuso – a suspiciously wealthy, working-class Trenton boy who has just shot his best friend – the stakes are higher than ever. That Mancuso is distantly related to vice cop Joe Morelli – who is trying to beat Stephanie to the punch – only makes the hunt more thrilling …
Taking pointers from her bounty hunter pal, Ranger, and using her pistol-packing Grandma Mazur as a decoy, Stephanie is soon closing in on her mark. But Morelli and his libido are worthy foes. And a more sinister kind of enemy has made his first move … and his next move might be Stephanies last.
It’s a few months after ONE FOR THE MONEY. Stephanie’s still working as a bounty hunter for her cousin Vinnie and thanks to Ranger, is making fewer mistakes than when she started out. When Vinnie asks her to bring in Kenny Mancuso who’s skipped out on bail after shooting his best friend, Stephanie’s confident that she’s up to the job. But Kenny’s a distant cousin of Joe Morelli and having been assigned to homicide, Morelli’s also keen to bring him in. It’s not long before Stephanie finds herself up to her neck in fugitives, funeral homes and a disturbed stalker with a taste for leaving anatomical items in Stephanie’s apartment …
Janet Evanovich’s crime sequel is another sharply plotted and at times hilarious novel that has numerous plot strands that come together in a satisfactory way at the end. Grandma Mazur is by far my favourite character who steals every scene where she’s in and has all the best lines and I loved the funeral home scenes where she frequently spreads mayhem wherever she goes. I also love the Plum family dinner scenes, which are deft and light and completely believable. Where the book falls down for me is in the romance between Stephanie and Morelli and that’s mainly because Morelli is such an arrogant, double-crossing jerk and the way he tries to ‘protect’ Stephanie at times made my skin crawl. I also dislike the way Stephanie turns into such an idiot around him and while she does have a couple of good moments where she stands up for herself, it’s not enough to take the bad taste away. This is a shame because there’s a lot of fun here (and I was genuinely worried for Stephanie’s hamster at times). There’s enough here to ensure I’ll keep reading on with the series but I think the Morelli/Stephanie romance could rapidly become a deal breaker for me.
I really enjoyed the return of Lula who has a job working admin at Vinnie’s bail bond office as the interaction between her and Stephanie is snappy and great and adds to the fun. It was also good to get a glimpse of Joyce Barnhardt, whose affair with Stephanie’s husband led to the end of her marriage – again the rivalry between Joyce and Stephanie holds a lot of promise for future books and I look forward to seeing how it develops.
The Verdict:
Janet Evanovich’s crime sequel is another sharply plotted and at times hilarious novel that has numerous plot strands that come together in a satisfactory way at the end. Grandma Mazur is by far my favourite character who steals every scene where she’s in and has all the best lines and I loved the funeral home scenes where she frequently spreads mayhem wherever she goes. I also love the Plum family dinner scenes, which are deft and light and completely believable. Where the book falls down for me is in the romance between Stephanie and Morelli and that’s mainly because Morelli is such an arrogant, double-crossing jerk and the way he tries to ‘protect’ Stephanie at times made my skin crawl. I also dislike the way Stephanie turns into such an idiot around him and while she does have a couple of good moments where she stands up for herself, it’s not enough to take the bad taste away. This is a shame because there’s a lot of fun here (and I was genuinely worried for Stephanie’s hamster at times). There’s enough here to ensure I’ll keep reading on with the series but I think the Morelli/Stephanie romance could rapidly become a deal breaker for me.
Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is still learning the ropes at her cousin VInne’s bail bond office, so when she sets out on the trail of Kenny Mancuso – a suspiciously wealthy, working-class Trenton boy who has just shot his best friend – the stakes are higher than ever. That Mancuso is distantly related to vice cop Joe Morelli – who is trying to beat Stephanie to the punch – only makes the hunt more thrilling …
Taking pointers from her bounty hunter pal, Ranger, and using her pistol-packing Grandma Mazur as a decoy, Stephanie is soon closing in on her mark. But Morelli and his libido are worthy foes. And a more sinister kind of enemy has made his first move … and his next move might be Stephanies last.
It’s a few months after ONE FOR THE MONEY. Stephanie’s still working as a bounty hunter for her cousin Vinnie and thanks to Ranger, is making fewer mistakes than when she started out. When Vinnie asks her to bring in Kenny Mancuso who’s skipped out on bail after shooting his best friend, Stephanie’s confident that she’s up to the job. But Kenny’s a distant cousin of Joe Morelli and having been assigned to homicide, Morelli’s also keen to bring him in. It’s not long before Stephanie finds herself up to her neck in fugitives, funeral homes and a disturbed stalker with a taste for leaving anatomical items in Stephanie’s apartment …
Janet Evanovich’s crime sequel is another sharply plotted and at times hilarious novel that has numerous plot strands that come together in a satisfactory way at the end. Grandma Mazur is by far my favourite character who steals every scene where she’s in and has all the best lines and I loved the funeral home scenes where she frequently spreads mayhem wherever she goes. I also love the Plum family dinner scenes, which are deft and light and completely believable. Where the book falls down for me is in the romance between Stephanie and Morelli and that’s mainly because Morelli is such an arrogant, double-crossing jerk and the way he tries to ‘protect’ Stephanie at times made my skin crawl. I also dislike the way Stephanie turns into such an idiot around him and while she does have a couple of good moments where she stands up for herself, it’s not enough to take the bad taste away. This is a shame because there’s a lot of fun here (and I was genuinely worried for Stephanie’s hamster at times). There’s enough here to ensure I’ll keep reading on with the series but I think the Morelli/Stephanie romance could rapidly become a deal breaker for me.
I really enjoyed the return of Lula who has a job working admin at Vinnie’s bail bond office as the interaction between her and Stephanie is snappy and great and adds to the fun. It was also good to get a glimpse of Joyce Barnhardt, whose affair with Stephanie’s husband led to the end of her marriage – again the rivalry between Joyce and Stephanie holds a lot of promise for future books and I look forward to seeing how it develops.
The Verdict:
Janet Evanovich’s crime sequel is another sharply plotted and at times hilarious novel that has numerous plot strands that come together in a satisfactory way at the end. Grandma Mazur is by far my favourite character who steals every scene where she’s in and has all the best lines and I loved the funeral home scenes where she frequently spreads mayhem wherever she goes. I also love the Plum family dinner scenes, which are deft and light and completely believable. Where the book falls down for me is in the romance between Stephanie and Morelli and that’s mainly because Morelli is such an arrogant, double-crossing jerk and the way he tries to ‘protect’ Stephanie at times made my skin crawl. I also dislike the way Stephanie turns into such an idiot around him and while she does have a couple of good moments where she stands up for herself, it’s not enough to take the bad taste away. This is a shame because there’s a lot of fun here (and I was genuinely worried for Stephanie’s hamster at times). There’s enough here to ensure I’ll keep reading on with the series but I think the Morelli/Stephanie romance could rapidly become a deal breaker for me.