Two for the dough

Following the hilarious and scary One for the Money, Hungarian-Italian bounty hunter from Trenton, New Jersey, Stephanie Plum is settling into her new trade, working for her cousin Vinnie while living near her parents and tending a pet hamster named Rex. She's still learning the bounty-hunter business, with assistance from the mysterious and ubercool Ranger and the cop Morelli, whose cousin Kenny has jumped bail and shot his best friend. It's Stephanie's responsibility to reel him in. In addition, Stiva's funeral home is missing some caskets, and the occasional body part, and Kenny seems to be tied into that, too. The plot veers from sleazily terrifying to laugh-out-loud funny: a set piece where Stephanie leaves Morelli on the street, clad only in socks and shirt, is matched for low amusement only by her Grandma Mazur caught in a mortuary corpse drawer aiming her gun (!) and delivering Clint Eastwood's Do you feel lucky? speech! A winner all the way.--DeCandido, GraceAnne A. Copyright 2008 Booklist

Sassy, brassy Stephanie Plum, the bounty hunter from Trenton, N.J., introduced to acclaim in last year's One for the Money, returns to track a bond jumper through her blue-collar neighborhood known as the ``burg.'' A local funeral home, a slimy undertaker and mutilated corpses figure large in the search for Kenny Mancuso, who, having shot an old high-school friend in the knee, posted bail with Stephanie's boss, her cousin, and then disappeared. When the old friend is shot again, fatally, Stephanie reluctantly joins forces with her sexy enemy and love interest, Trenton homicide cop Joe Morelli. While looking for Kenny, Stephanie also searches for 24 caskets stolen from Spiro Stiva, heir apparent of Stiva's Mortuary and also a high-school buddy of Kenny's. As body parts, cut from ``clients'' on view at Stiva's, are used to warn people off the case, Stephanie and Morelli spar in a lively if expected fashion and Stephanie's feisty gun-toting Grandma Mazur forsakes her usual routine of talk-show TV and attending wakes to join the fight against crime. Readers will likely stay a few steps ahead of the sleuths, but the sharp repartee and Stephanie's slightly cynical but still fond relationship with her family and the burg hold a treasury of urban-style charms. $100,000 ad/promo; Mystery Guild selection; Literary Guild alternate selection; author tour. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Evanovich's first novel, One for the Money (Macmillan, 1994), introduced Stephanie Plum, a gutsy heroine who wormed her way into a job with her bond-agent cousin Vinnie. With the aid of vice cop Joe and her Grandma Mazur, Stephanie pursues a bail jumper and knows that a vice cop wants them both. A winning adventure. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Trenton's most unlikely bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum, is looking for Kenny Mancuso, who jumped bail after shooting his onetime friend Moogey Bues in the knee. And she's been hired to do a little work on the side for creepy, marriage-minded undertaker Spiro Stiva, who's missing two dozen empty caskets. But instead of getting on Mancuso's tail, Stephanie (One for the Money, 1994) finds Mancuso on hers--he's sending her body parts excised from Stiva's deceased clients, taunting her in their face-to-face meetings, and going after her irrepressible Grandma Mazur with an ice pick--and by the time she locates the caskets, they're about to be set afire. Meantime, somebody has returned to Moogey Bues's gas station to shoot him dead, and Joe Morelli, the swivel-hipped stallion of Trenton Vice who's always had the hots for Stephanie, has tied both Mancuso and Moogey's equally menacing colleague Perry Sandeman into a big-time theft of government arms. But how can Stephanie ever fit the pieces of the puzzle together when her cockeyed burg puts her hamster under constant threat of death, and her manicurist tells her, ``I used to carry a forty-five, but I got bursitis from the weight''? The first must-read of the new year: more action and laughs than two weeks in Trenton. (Literary Guild alternate; Mystery Guild main selection; $100,000 ad/promo; author tour)

Following the hilarious and scary One for the Money, Hungarian-Italian bounty hunter from Trenton, New Jersey, Stephanie Plum is settling into her new trade, working for her cousin Vinnie while living near her parents and tending a pet hamster named Rex. She s still learning the bounty-hunter business, with assistance from the mysterious and ubercool Ranger and the cop Morelli, whose cousin Kenny has jumped bail and shot his best friend. It s Stephanie s responsibility to reel him in. In addition, Stiva s funeral home is missing some caskets, and the occasional body part, and Kenny seems to be tied into that, too. The plot veers from sleazily terrifying to laugh-out-loud funny: a set piece where Stephanie leaves Morelli on the street, clad only in socks and shirt, is matched for low amusement only by her Grandma Mazur caught in a mortuary corpse drawer aiming her gun (!) and delivering Clint Eastwood s "Do you feel lucky?" speech! A winner all the way. Copyright Booklist Reviews 2008.

After making the finals for the Edgar, Agatha, and Shamus awards, Evanovich's debut, One for the Money (LJ 7/94), won the Dilys award from the Independent Mystery Booksellers of America as the book "most fun to sell." In this sequel, New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum encounters an illegal weapons operation. Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information.

Sassy, brassy Stephanie Plum, the bounty hunter from Trenton, N.J., introduced to acclaim in last year's One for the Money, returns to track a bond jumper through her blue-collar neighborhood known as the ``burg.'' A local funeral home, a slimy undertaker and mutilated corpses figure large in the search for Kenny Mancuso, who, having shot an old high-school friend in the knee, posted bail with Stephanie's boss, her cousin, and then disappeared. When the old friend is shot again, fatally, Stephanie reluctantly joins forces with her sexy enemy and love interest, Trenton homicide cop Joe Morelli. While looking for Kenny, Stephanie also searches for 24 caskets stolen from Spiro Stiva, heir apparent of Stiva's Mortuary and also a high-school buddy of Kenny's. As body parts, cut from ``clients'' on view at Stiva's, are used to warn people off the case, Stephanie and Morelli spar in a lively if expected fashion and Stephanie's feisty gun-toting Grandma Mazur forsakes her usual routine of talk-show TV and attending wakes to join the fight against crime. Readers will likely stay a few steps ahead of the sleuths, but the sharp repartee and Stephanie's slightly cynical but still fond relationship with her family and the burg hold a treasury of urban-style charms. $100,000 ad/promo; Mystery Guild selection; Literary Guild alternate selection; author tour. (Jan.) Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information.

Return of sassy New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum in Evanovich's followup to One for the Money. (Sept.) Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information.

Evanovich's first novel, One for the Money (Macmillan, 1994), introduced Stephanie Plum, a gutsy heroine who wormed her way into a job with her bond-agent cousin Vinnie. With the aid of vice cop Joe and her Grandma Mazur, Stephanie pursues a bail jumper and knows that a vice cop wants them both. A winning adventure. Copyright 1998 Library Journal Reviews