Archive for April 6th, 2012|Daily archive page
Two for the Dough (Stephanie Plum, #2)
author: Janet Evanovich
name: Paul
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1991
rating: 3
read at: 2012/04/05
date added: 2012/04/06
shelves: humor, mystery, novel
review:
I guess the benefit of having your heroine be a bounty hunter and not a private detective or an amateur sleuth is that the traditional whodunnit mystery format doesn’t necessarily have to apply. After two of Janet Evanovich‘s numbered Stephanie Plum novels, it’s pretty clear the star of the show isn’t the corpse du jour and the method by which the perpetrator is discovered, the star is Plum herself and the revolving cast of colorful, over-the-top supporting characters.
The plot here isn’t even really that interesting: A cousin of Plum’s antagonistic sort of half-crush, vice cop Joe Morelli, skipped bail on an assault charge for shooting a friend in the knee. After Plum misses a chance at an apprehension, the friend ends up dead and the chase is on. What is interesting is Plum’s falling-with-style approach to her job, where she ineptly channels her uncommon luck/unluck into a sort of passable career. That, and Evanovich’s knack for writing memorable characters.
One For The Money was pretty good, but this one showcases where Evanovich is going with the character and the stories, which is into a breezy, funny, quick read territory. The plot of the first novel was better than this one, but the humor and characterization are superior in this follow up which means they’re about a wash in comparison. I’m tempted to boost the final rating of this one just because of the laugh-out-loud ludicrousness of Grandma Mazur, who steals the show in this book. I’ll refrain though because Grandma is the kind of Fonzi/Urkel-esque character who can easily crowd the spotlight, so I hope Evanovich doesn’t feature her to this degree in every subsequent book. Still, she may be the un-quantifiably best elderly character I’ve yet encountered in fiction.
These books are empty literary calories, and there’s nothing wrong with a little mindless fun. I’m certainly putting Three To Get Deadly on my to-read list and I’m not even feeling guilty about it. I do hope as the series goes on the plotting gets a bit stronger while the zany tone and witty dialogue stay consistent, but even at the current quality level, I’m game for a half dozen or so, no problem.