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Okay, so I think we’ve already established the fact that I’m
hooked on Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels. And at a recent book sale held at our
local library, I hit the jackpot. I was scanning through boxes and boxes of books when I
saw it: the first Stephanie Plum book. I shoved through the crowd, snatched up the book,
and clutched it in my arms as I ran off.
Yep. I like these books that
much.
Now that I’ve read several of the more recent Plum novels, it was
exciting to read the first one—the one that started it all. In One for the Money
Evanovich sets up the story. Stephanie Plum is down-and-out. She’s been out of a job
for six months, her car has been impounded, and she’s sold all of her furniture to pay
the rent and keep herself and her hamster, Rex, fed. Desperate for cash, she goes to her
cousin Vinnie, a bail bondsman, to beg for a filing job. Instead, she ends up taking a
job as a bounty hunter (how hard can that be?)
Stephanie’s first job is
to hunt down Joe Morelli, a guy who grew up down the street from Stephanie—and with whom
she had an, er, encounter behind the éclair counter at the donut shop where she used to
work. Now Morelli’s a cop. Or at least he was until he supposedly killed an unarmed man
and then disappeared. It’s Stephanie’s job to find Morelli and bring him in—but it
turns out to be easier said than done. Even with the help of Ranger, a veteran bounty
hunter, Steph finds that while she keeps running into Morelli, she can’t seem to capture
him. And to make matters worse, she’s become the obsession of a criminally insane boxer
who’s determined to make her his next victim.
One for the Money
isn’t Evanovich’s best. Her writing has definitely gotten a lot more solid since this
first book in her series. But the important things are still there—namely the laughs and
the eccentric characters (like Stephanie’s Grandma Mazur and Lula, the queen-sized
hooker). And it’s worth reading just to see how it all began.
If you’ve
never read a Stephanie Plum book before, you don’t have to start with the first
one—though it definitely won’t hurt to start from the beginning. Pick up One for the
Money. It’s a super-quick read (it only took me about three or four days of
spare-time reading), and once you’ve read it, you’ll be eager to move on to the next
one.
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