Ten Big Ones by
Janet Evanovich
hbk out June 04
Published by Headline
at £12.99
Janet Evanovich is a very funny writer, the America equivalent of our own
Mike Ripley with his 'Angel' series. She writes about her heroine Stephanie
Plum and this is the tenth episode, as all the books have a consecutive
number in the title.
Stephanie is a bail bondsman, one of those peculiar American institutions
which is so useful to crime novelists and scriptwriters, as these folk seem to
do the work of the police in arresting errant suspects and hauling them off to
court. Stephanie is a zany young woman, always getting into trouble in most
hilarious ways, all this happening in Trenton, New Jersey - a nice change for
the usual crime fiction locales of LA or NY, but hardly a tourist venue. The
other standing characters in the series are her fat black colleague Lula, her
eccentric Grandma Mazur, her cop man-friend Joe Morelli and the
mysterious bounty hunter Ranger, whose role in the story is equally
unfathomable. As with all series, one of the problems is that the author tends
to assume that you know some of the background to the characters from
previous books, which is a bit difficult when you've not read any of the
others. The heroine gets on the wrong side of some Trenton gangs and
scuttles about the city dodging them and hiding out in Ranger's apartment.
Her dysfunctional family feature quite a lot, mainly concerning her pregnant
sister's wedding which is being organised by a transvestite who drives a
school bus. Quite a lot of the wordage revolves around food, though
Stephanie's staple diet seems to be 'do-nuts' eaten from paper bags.
Another problem is that some of the text is in a foreign language, to wit,
American - without a Jersey dictionary I had no idea what 'subs' or 'Frito-
Lays' might be.
The plot in this one is pretty thin and is really only a vehicle for a succession
of situations, comic and scary, which Stephanie Plum gets herself into. In
some ways, it reads more like a script for a television show than a novel and
from that point of view is rather an unsatisfying read. It's fine to pick up
now and then for a chuckle, but is hardly a 'can't-put-it-downer'.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
Ten Big Ones by
Janet Evanovich
