Customer Reviews

Hot Six: A Stephanie Plum Novel

5 star:		(238)
4 star:		(52)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book is hilarious. It is an easy read and keeps you laughing out loud all the way through. Stephanie and her fellow colleagues and love mates are interesting and snappy. Gotta love Stephanie Plum. I plan to read all of hers.

After reading, in no particular order, a half dozen or so of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels, I decided that I had to review at least one of them (call it a compulsion to do so), and __HOT SIX__, being the most recent one I've read, got the nod.

I believe that the plots in these novels are mostly there to provide a background for the machinations of our intrepid bounty hunter and her friends and relatives. The plot has been pretty well described in the 300+ previous reviews, so I'll just give it a very short discussion before getting into the part of this review that's the most fun for me.

In her position as a bounty hunter (officially bond enforcement agent), Stephanie is given the job of apprehending and bringing to court, the man who taught her everything she knows about the art of bounty hunting, the elusive man known as Ranger. Ranger, who is out on bond, has missed a court appearance. He is the suspect of choice for a murder. Stephanie, and everyone else, knows that bringing in Ranger is impossible -- no one captures Ranger. No one! But, it does seem that everyone wants to find him, the good guys, the bad guys, and a few intermediate semi-bad guys. This situation provides background for the true meat of the novel, Stephanie's adventures and misadventures along the way.

To give you a an idea of just how good a bounty hunter Stephanie is, consider the following: Most of the time Stephanie sets out on her apprehension tasks by leaving her gun at home in a cookie jar. When she does take it, it usually has only one bullet, or even none, because she has forgotten to buy more. When she does catch up with someone, her intended target more often than not gets away, and in so doing, wrecks her car, and/or sets her on fire, and/or handcuffs her with her own handcuffs, and/or just walks away while she is preoccupied with something else. At any rate her success rate on the first few tries with each bail jumper is very, very low

She attempts clandestine surveillance in a nice inconspicuous "Rollswagon," a car with the front of a Rolls Royce attached to the body of a Volkswagon. Nobody'll spot this car! It's a temporary replacement for her most recent wrecked car.

While trying to peer into the window of a suspect's house, our Stephanie falls out of a tree into his walled off back yard, and gets shot at.

There's lots more, but you get the idea.

Stephanie lusts after two men, the aforementioned Ranger, and her sometimes lover, sometimes protector, sometimes a few other things, Joe Morelli, police detective. This lust is reciprocated by both men.

Stephanie has a grandmother who frequently totes a gun herself, thinks that she, too, would like to be a bounty hunter, and, spreading fear throughout the area, somehow passes the driving test and gets a drivers license.

Stephanie has a sidekick named Lula who is a retired prostitute and who frequently accompanies Stephanie on her misadventures. Lula is a very large woman who dresses in skintight spandex apparel, carries two or three guns and, on every case, tells Stephanie what havoc she is going to wreak on each target. Then when the time comes, tends to run away even faster than Stephanie.

Stephanie has a long suffering mother whose answer to any problem is to start ironing.

And, oh yes, did I mention that Stephanie's idea of home cooking is to make a peanut butter and potato chip sandwich.

There are also a few other colorful characters in Stephanie's life, both human and animal. These include her cousin Vinnie, the owner of the bonding agency, and her boss; her "arch enemy," Joyce Barnhardt; the inadvertantly comedic duo of Moonster and dougie, "the dealer" as well as her pet hamster, Rex; and Bob, the dog who eats everything he can reach, including furniture, and whom you'd like to hate, but can't because he's just too sweet.

When you toss all of these people and animals in a hopper, then add a few gangsters and lunatics to the mix, you end up with a laugh or two or even three on every page from the opening line right up to to the concluding sentence. Thanks, Janet Evanovich, you keep me laughing.

I'm normally turned off by the fodder usually topping the bestseller charts, finding it to often be mindless, formulistic garbage like "The DaVinci Code," overhyped and poorly written. Evanovich's work, however, truly stands out as endlessly entertaining, full to the brim of original characters, snappy dialogue, bizarre adventures, and a consistently lovable heroine. Don't miss this series - you WON'T be disappointed.

HOT SIX by Janet Evanovich

In the sixth installment of the Stephanie Plum series, HOT SIX is yet another fun and exciting novel featuring this accident-prone bounty hunter. This time around, Grandmother Mazur has had a fight with Stephanie's father, so guess who is moving in with Stephanie?

Besides dealing with Grandmother Mazur's snoring at night, Stephanie's latest assignment is to track down her old buddy Ranger who is now a fugitive with the law. She also has two bumbling idiots following her wherever she goes, thinking that she would lead them to Ranger. Morelli is of course in the picture, and things are getting hot and heavy between the two of them. And Stephanie has also temporarily acquired a huge dog that cannot seem to stop eating.

I cannot express how much I enjoy this series. HOT SIX was yet another fun read and I am looking forward to the next one. Janet Evanovich, please do not stop writing these books!

At the end of my review of the previous book in the Stephanie Plum series, HIGH FIVE, I wondered if author Janet Evanovich was on the verge of trying too hard with her plotting. Then, of course, there was thread left dangling on the last page. Whose name, Morelli's or Ranger's, did Stephanie pull out of the bowl in her Night of Passion Lottery? In HOT SIX, it seems to me that Evanovich is indeed pushing it. And it turns out that Joe Morelli is the one that got lucky.

Plum is a bounty hunter in Trenton, NJ, employed by Vincent Plum Bail Bonds, the owner being her scummy cousin, Vinnie. Stephanie's modus operandi is either Keystone Cops or Bull-In-China-Shop, depending on her mood and the amount of junk snacks that she's consumed. The fact that she ultimately succeeds is based purely on dogged persistence and good fortune.

The skeleton of the HOT SIX plot is that Vinnie tasks Plum with apprehending Ranger, his best bond enforcement agent and Stephanie's friend and frequent mentor. Ranger has skipped bail on a ridiculous concealed weapon charge - everyone carries in Trenton - and it doesn't help that the local cops want to question him about the recent murder of a crime kingpin's son. Plum wants no part of it, least of all because she hasn't the skill to nab the ex-Special Forces soldier. But, as the bodies pile up, bagging Ranger becomes the least of her worries.

Don't get me wrong. HOT SIX is as funny as any previous book in the series. It's just that Janet's imagination has, in my opinion, finally gone over the top in populating the storyline with weird characters and dropping her heroine into bizarre situations. It's gotten to the point where less wackiness may be better. It's fine that her feisty Grandma Mazur, reminiscent of Sophia (Estelle Getty) of American TV's GOLDEN GIRLS sitcom, must move in with her, but not necessary that the former take driving lessons, date the ancient geezer upstairs, or purchase a red Corvette. It's not unusual that Stephanie apprehends a couple of oddball fugitives over the course of the book, but not required that one of them here be costumed as Captain Kirk at a Trekkies gathering during the takedown. And not surprisingly, Stephanie is followed by a couple of goons who also have an interest in finding Ranger. But does one of them really have to be a Pakistani emigre who, back in the old country, used to beat unruly children working in the village rug factory? What has before simply seemed to be Plum's bad karma is now too heavy a concentration of weird to be believed.

Finally, the reactions of Stephanie's mother to her antics - she say's "Why me?" and makes the sign of the cross a lot- are getting old. And Stephanie's long-suffering Dad continues to be a virtual cipher. It's time both characters were fleshed out.

At least Stephanie is making progress in her love life. Is that a proposal of marriage coming from Morelli at the book's end? You think? After finishing this review, I'm off to purchase SEVEN UP.

This book is so hot, you burn your fingers while you turn the pages. Stephanie is out dealing with the dregs of society while she tries to bring in her bond jumpers. But in this one she's got two new roommates. Grandma Mazur has moved in with her and she's acquired a part Golden Retriever dog called Bob. Stephanie's mentor and friend Ranger is in trouble in this one. It appears that he was seen leaving the scene of a fire where a corpse that had been shot was found. Stephanie's boss Vince wants him brought in, but Steph can't convince herself that Ranger could possibly have killed someone, and like she says, "he's smoke", so how could she catch him. But she tries to help him and by doing so gets involved in a mafia gang turf war that almost costs her her life. This book rollicks through to the conclusion like only Evanovich can. It's unputdownable, and the best in the series so far.

This book for me is simply yum! Ranger, oh, Ranger, I'm sorry to all the Morelli fans but Ranger is the guy I adore in Stephanie's books.
Stephanie starts out this book by saving her friend Carol from jumping off a bridge. Good deed that will come back later in the form of Bob the dog. See, Carol stole some undies to try and spice up her marriage while she was trying to get away she hits an unmarked police car. So rather than go to jail Carol is willing to jump off the bridge. I'll leave it at that because you don't need to know much more. :)

Back to Ranger:
This time he's hiding out because he is wanted on murder charges. He's missed his court date and now Vinnie wants Steph to track him down. Although she refuses Vinnie's demands she still starts checking for him anyway. She wants to know and we need to know what has happened to Ranger.

She ends up with Ranger popping in at all hours of the night to get some steamy flirting in and to find out any information she might have discover on the Ramos family (a gun running family whose son he is suspected of killing). Ranger doesn't want to ask her, but soon has to because she falls into the good graces of Homer Ramos (Head of the Ramos family). Stephanie ends up in a wild goose chase of searching for the real killer and her own doubts of whether Ranger could have done the killing or not.

Steph gets two new roommates Grandma Mazur and Bob the Dog. She's got a huge pimple and isn't getting any sleep because Grandma snores and Ranger keeps popping in in the middle of the night.

This is just a bit of the fun Stephanie is in for this time because she's got all that wonderful chemistry with Ranger that keeps scarying her to death and Bob and Lula along for the ride.

This is another great one for Janet. I just can't wait for each new book. When a new one comes out I preorder as soon as I can eagerly awaiting it's arrival and each time I go through the entire series prior to reading the newest book.

These books are better each time I read them. I am so glad I found this series. I'll keep reading them as long as she keeps writing them. :)

Homer Ramos has been killed and the building he was in set on fire. The accused is none other than Ranger! When Stephanie's cousin Vinnie tries to assign this FTA to Stephanie she refuses big time. No way will she even attempt to bring in Ranger. The file is then given to Stephanie's rival, Joyce Barnhardt. Stephanie has other bad guys to catch though and somehow becomes employed by Ranger. She also has two new roomates when Grandma Mazur moves in after a disagreement with Stephanie's parents, and when she is conned into "dog sitting" cop Brian Simon's dog while he's "away". The Golden Retriver, Bob, becomes part of Stephanie's wacky family, and wins the hearts of the reader.

This book was awesome. Stephanie is as sassy as ever, and Grandma Mazur is as wild and loveable as expected. The addition of Bob to the mix was entertaining and made the book fun to read. There were also two new off the wall characters--Mooner and Dougie, a.k.a The Dealer. These two seemed to be molded after Beevis and Butthead. They were likable in their own odd way. And of course, no Stephanie Plum novel would be complete without the irresistable Joe Morelli and the dangerous Ranger.

The plot of this story was great. It was well written and moved along at a fast and steady pace. There is enough action and laughs to keep the reader turning pages as fast as they can. The characters are all charming and quirky, if not a little (ok, maybe a lot)mixed up in the head. This just adds to the entertainment of the book and makes it more fun to read.

Also, the prologue of Hot Six answers the mystery at the end of High Five. If you've read High Five and wondered about the mystery man at the end, the beginning of Hot Six will end the suspense.

Hot Six is a fun, wacky, crazy, entertaining read. Packed with laughs and chills it is a book to recommend. A keeper by far.

Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter has been told by her cousin to bring in Ranger. Seems Ranger was the last person to see a another guy alive. Anyway the book starts of with our favorite cast of characters. Not to mention Grandma's taken to pack'n a .45 hand cannon in her purse! Poor Stephanie, her on again off again relationship with Morelli is currently off and she's getting death threats as usual. Its another good romping read in the day and life of Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter. Definately worth the read, especially if your a Plum fan.

Another fun one from Evanovich! This time Ranger's definitely on the wrong side of the law, and Stephanie's the one who's got to bring him in. As you can imagine, that is easier said than done. And, of course, Stephanie has some other obstacles to peace and happiness, including her Grandmother who is now living with her, a deranged killer wanting her for his next victim, and Bob, the canine eating-pooping machine. This one proves as enjoyable as the rest.