Explosive Eighteen

Starred review from January 30, 2012
Lorelei King continues to shine as the narrator of Evanovich’s long-running series about feisty New Jersey bail bondswoman Stephanie Plum. The wry humor of the book is evident from King’s rendition of the opening lines: “New Jersey was 40,000 feet below me, obscured by cloud cover. Heaven was above me, obscured by the thin skin of the plane. And hell was sitting four rows back.” Plum’s flight home from Hawaii is typically atypical; instead of a relaxing trip, a neighboring passenger vanishes while the aircraft stops in Los Angeles, and a mysterious photograph he was carrying becomes the subject of an intense clash between the bad guys and the FBI—with Plum caught in the middle. King—who enhances the text with her spot-on narration—has no equal when it comes to voicing characters of the opposite sex, and her pacing perfectly matches the book’s breezy tone. Listeners new to the series will want to seek out the previous 17 installments. A Bantam hardcover.

March 12, 2012
Life is never dull for Stephanie Plum, but now she's got an assassin and the FBI on her tail in Evanovich's less than stellar 18th entry in her main sequence featuring the New Jersey bounty hunter (after Smokin' Seventeen). Back in Trenton after a disastrous trip to Hawaii that involved both Ranger and Joe Morelli (don't ask, she won't talk), Stephanie tries to go about life in the bond business, accompanied as always by her sidekick, Lula. But Hawaii won't stay buried, especially when news that her seatmate turned up murdered and his killers are convinced that Stephanie now has a photograph he was carrying. With Stephanie's luck, the photograph did end up in her luggage, but she threw it away, thinking it was junk. But try telling that to the FBIâand the shady men masquerading agentsâor the hit man who goes by Razzle Dazzle and wants to kill her and take the photograph, not necessarily in that order. There are still bond jumpers to catchâlike Buggy, who repeatedly steals Stephanie's carâand the perpetual Morelli versus Ranger question to answer. In the end, there's little to distinguish this installment from its recent predecessors.