Cadix
Résumé:
"Uncle Fred was someone I saw at weddings and funerals
and once in a while at Giovichinni's Meat Market, ordering a
quarter pound of olive loaf. Eddie Such, the butcher, would
have the olive loaf on the scale and Uncle Fred would say,
'You've got the olive loaf on a piece of waxed paper. How much
does that piece of waxed paper weigh? You're not gonna charge
me for that waxed paper, are you? I want some money off for the
waxed paper.'" The speaker is Stephanie Plum, the glamorous if
slightly ditzy bounty hunter from Trenton, New Jersey, and one
of the most original creations in recent mystery fiction. In
this fifth entry in Janet Evanovich's increasingly popular
series, Stephanie's problems are many and varied. She's not
making enough money picking up FTAs (Failures to Appear) for
her cousin Vinnie, of Vincent Plum Bail Bonds; her red-hot love
affair with Detective Joe Morelli has cooled off; and her giant
extended family is no help at all. For instance, Uncle Fred the
cheapskate has disappeared, leaving behind some suspicious
photographs of body parts in garbage bags and links to some
really dangerous people. When Stephanie turns to her friend and
mentor, Ranger, for financial advice, he gets her involved in a
gang of toughs doing instant evictions for landlords. (She
complains to Ranger about the job and its dangers, prompting
one of the hired thug to say, "Man, you don't like to get shot.
You don't like to get arrested. You don't know how to have fun
at all.") Most of Stephanie's charm, of course, comes from her
attitude--a combination of the brazen bravado that turns a
failed lingerie model into a bounty hunter in the first place
and the normal fears of a person in over her head. Other Plums
in paperback, by the numbers: One for the Money, Two for the
Dough, Three to Get Deadly, and Four to Score. --Dick Adler