Book Review-Newer Books 28

Review—Fearless Fourteen

Janet Evanovich wrote the novel Fearless Fourteen. St. Martin’s Press published the book in June 2008; the novel has 310 pages.

            Made men, criminals, and cops are found not only in Chicago, but also in Trenton, New Jersey. This is part of Stephanie Plum’s world; a local bounty hunter, who lives with Joe Morelli, a detective and works a second job with Ranger, who not only tempts her senses, but owns his own security company.

            This time, Stephanie is pulled into circumstances that concerns one of Joe’s crazier relatives. With her trusted partner Lulu, she searches for a man just released from prison, who was thought to have stolen 9-million dollars and had it hidden while he served his time. In the process of the search, a kidnapping occurs and Stephanie and Joe are handed the responsibility of a confused computer-hacking teen, who is related to both the criminal and possibly, Joe. This adds a new dimension to Stephanie’s skills in bounty hunting, which are often inept at best. While Joe investigates recent crimes, Stephanie is hired to be the female part of a security team for a high-profile celebrity. Between Lulu planning a wedding and her grandmother, discovering computer gaming, Stephanie’s family is brought into the middle of each day’s new crisis, with the patience, food, and alcohol provided; items, which they have learned to need to deal with her life. During this time of partial parenting, Joe and Stephanie consider their future plans, kids and all, OH MY!.

            Janet Evanovich had written this series of Plum books and each one adds new levels and dilemmas for Stephanie in relation to family, friends, and relationships. In addition, she perseveres in being the funniest bounty hunter ever. With humor and fate combined to make each job entertaining and often fraught with danger, Evanovich weaves stories, which are laugh-out-loud funny. The characters surrounding Stephanie, no matter the situation, provide love, support and more often than not, an addition to the levels of crisis in her life, but every time it provides comic relief to her forever effort to get her life into a semblance of order and direction.