Cadix
Résumé:
Stephanie Plum is so smart, so honest, and so funny that
her narrative charm could drive a documentary on termites. But
this tough gal from New Jersey, an unemployed discount lingerie
buyer, has a much more interesting story to tell: She has to
say that her Miata has been repossessed and that she's so poor
at the moment that she just drank her last bottle of beer for
breakfast. She has to say that her only chance out of her
present rut is her repugnant cousin Vinnie and his bail-bond
business. She has to say that she blackmailed Vinnie into
giving her a bail-bond recovery job worth $10,000 (for a murder
suspect), even though she doesn't own a gun and has never
apprehended a person in her life. And she has to say that the
guy she has to get, Joe Morelli, is the same creep who charmed
away her teenage virginity behind the pastry case in the
Trenton bakery where she worked after school. If that hard-luck
story doesn't sound compelling enough, Stephanie's several
unsuccessful attempts at pulling in Joe make a downright
hilarious and suspenseful tale of murder and deceit. Along the
way, several more outlandish (but unrelentingly real)
characters join the story, including Benito Ramirez, a champion
boxer who seems to be following Stephanie Plum wherever she
goes. Janet Evanovich shares an authentic feel for the streets
of Trenton in her debut mystery (she developed her talents in a
string of romance novels before creating Ms. Plum), and her
tough, frank, and funny first-person narrator offers a winning
mix of vulgarity and sensitivity. Evanovich is certainly among
the best of the new voices to emerge in the mystery field of
the 1990s. --Patrick O'Kelley