Janet Evanovich taught me that I liked… no, that I LOVED
funny in my reading material. Before Janet and Carl Hiaasen I read the most
depressing things. And thus wrote nothing but the most depressing fiction. So I
owe her a debt of gratitude. One for the
Money, the first of her—what? 21 Stephanie Plum novels?—is a
comic/mystery/thriller gem. From how she became a bounty hunter—laid off as a
lingerie buyer, car repossessed, blackmailing her slimy cousin Vinnie for the
job. Pure gold. And then there’s her hatred/attraction to Joe Morelli, the bad
boy who took her virginity behind the eclaire case, never called, that she ran
over with her father’s car, and is now a disgraced cop hiding from the
authorities, and Stephanie is going to try and catch him. Oh, it’s so damn
sexy. And then there is LULA! No actress alive would be able to play Lula. She
is truly one of a kind. Run, don’t walk, and read One for the Money.
