Customer Reviews

Three to Get Deadly: A Stephanie Plum Novel

5 star:		(87)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

It was a slow day in the bounty hunting business and the best that Stephanie could do was an FTA. "Uncle Mo" Bedemier, well-loved owner of the local ice cream parlour, was a "failure to appear" on a charge of carrying a concealed weapon. Stephanie didn't like the idea of having to chase down one of the burg's most respected citizens and the local populace, thinking the charge bogus and ill-advised in any event, certainly weren't tripping over themselves to give Stephanie a lending hand finding her man. But business is business and Stephanie is Stephanie. She leaped into the deep end of the pool and soon found herself up to her neck in murdered drug dealers, vigilantes, bible-thumping snake-charming country preachers and the porn industry. Plenty of room for fun and games in this little story!

But from the first moment a grateful reading audience read Stephanie Plum's exploits in her debut novel "One for the Money", the plot never has been the thing. "Three to Get Deadly" doesn't change a thing about that. Character development, slapstick comedy, earthy blue-collar New York dialogue and sticky wickets that would do "The Perils of Pauline" proud are what have rocketed this series to the top of the best-selling lists. No doubt about it. Janet Evanovich continues her string of successes and laugh-out-loud hilarity reigns supreme from first page to last.

Did you like Grandma Mazur in the first two books of the series? Then you'll die for Lula, former juiced hooker, newly minted office assistant and bounty hunter in training under Stephanie's dubious tutelage. She's "f"-ing amazing - funny, frolicsome, free-wheeling, full-figured, feisty, fired-up, frantic, in your face and fabulous! She's got a salty mouth and an attitude that any self-respecting trucker would be might proud of! What a piece of work.

Highly recommended.

Paul Weiss

I took "Three" and "Four" on a cruise expecting two treats. Instead what I got from this one was pure boredom. Perhaps it is inevitable that a series becomes a matter of filling in the blanks. In this case, what started out with a bang has become a predictable succession of events. Sure, many of these are humorous but we all know by now that Stephanie will endure her parents, Grandma will act strange, Joe will flirt and Lula will holler. The series needs a little "oomph" to keep going. The story was also not one of the best.

I'm now three books into the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. I've yet to be bored - even a little bit - and that's worth a five-star rating by itself. I get bored easily.

By now, klutzy Stephanie is settled into her career as a bounty hunter employed by her sleaze-ball cousin Vinnie, a bail bondsman in beautiful Trenton, NJ, a job she took in desperation after being fired from her previous gig as a lingerie buyer. Her latest quarry is the affectionately-named Uncle Mo, the elderly, unmarried owner of the neighborhood ice cream and candy emporium, who skipped bail after being charged for carrying a concealed weapon - everyone in Trenton carries, it seems - by an overzealous cop on a traffic stop. In trying to track Mo down, Plum discovers that little is known about him by neighbors and relatives. But, Stephanie is considered Pond Scum by all for hounding a man akin to the Pope and Santa Claus all rolled into one. Then, local drug dealers start disappearing. And what's that putrid smell coming from the basement of Mo's store? As Stephanie delicately puts it, "Is it dookey?"

For me, the series hasn't become stale because Evanovich either brings to the forefront a tangential character from a previous novel, or inserts a brand new one into the plot. In THREE TO GET DEADLY, Lula, a reformed ho beaten and left for dead on Stephanie's fire escape month's before, now does filing for Vinnie and insists on "assisting" Plum on her takedowns. And we're initially introduced to Stephanie's former first husband, the shyster lawyer Dickie Orr. In the meantime, the sexual tension remains high between Stephanie and Joe Morelli, the exasperating Trenton plain-clothes cop whom the teenaged former once ran down with the family Buick after the teenaged latter despoiled Stephanie's maidenhood on the floor behind the eclair case of the local donut shop where she was working at the time.

The images conjured by Janet's prose are hilarious, as when Stephanie and her pet hamster Rex are beset by two thugs in her apartment and shots are fired. Her elderly neighbors pour forth to lend help with enough armament to have rescued Custer. Or when Stephanie struggles to apprehend a fugitive costumed as a chicken in a fast food joint.

I normally like to vary my reading, but I'm immediately jumping to Plum's next escapade, FOUR TO SCORE. Albeit frivolous, this is good stuff.

I'm completely bewildered as to why this series is so popular, but it only seems further evidence of the decline of Western Civilization where trash has become mainstream, be it junk TV or junk novels. And I know Jersey well, too. The characters, particularly Lulu, were incredibly annoying and often of the lowest common denominator. The plot was thin, at best, and far from challenging -- and as to what was so hilarious, you've got me! I have never considered "astute" dialogue to be bad English, whether it's supposed to resemble "real" conversation or not. It's not hard to write such dialogue, it's actually harder to be "witty." Wit this is not unless you consider the smartass dialogue in some movies "wit" even if you can see it coming a mile away. But to each his or her own, obviously. Still, I don't get it and I couldn't get through this book. It seemed like a huge waste of time.

Evanovich is getting better and better at this series. Stephanie Plum, semi-reluctant bounty hunter for five months now for her bail bondsmen cousin, Vinnie, is still trying hard, still learning her trade, still relying on others as necessary. If she didn't live in Trenton's blue-collar "burg," surrounded by supportive family, old school friends, and her ever-reliable gossip network, she probably would never make it. But she can always call on Ranger, a truly bad-ass bounty hunter and her sometime mentor. And she can always go home for meals when the checks are slow in coming. And especially, she can always depend on vice cop Morelli to show up with pizza, park outside her apartment building watching for the bad guys, and keep her lust stoked. This time, the quarry is the burg's beloved "Uncle Mo" Bedemier, proprietor of the candy store, who has always opposed drugs and bad influences generally and whose store has long been a safe haven for kids. Uncle Mo got tapped by a rookie for carrying concealed and not only has he blown off his court date (which makes him scum as far as Vinnie is concerned, regardless of how the rest of the community feels about him), he's completely disappeared. More than that, drug dealers begin disappearing, too, including several that Stephanie and her wannabe sidekick, Lula, literally stumble over themselves. As with the first two books, there are plenty of very funny, very cinematic scenes here -- especially the great chicken takedown.

Admittedly, not having read the first 2 books of this character, I'm coming in cold.

I can't recall a dumber major character in a book. Stupid moves compound themselves for the major character, making it difficult to root for someone so completely clueless floundering in her chosen profession.

The main character should be stocking shelves in a department store, not trying her inept hand at bounty hunting. (Ex: A bounty hunter that: A. forgets her gun often B. Forgets to load her gun C. Can't seem to keep her cell phone batteries charged.)

I'm sure this might be more interesting to someone from Jersey.

If you liked "Dumb and Dumber" which many people did, you might like this character.

My thoughts run toward: Any bouty hunter this weak, stupid and unprepared would not last much more than a week. Couldn't buy into the idiocy, making the contrived humor harder to take.

If you like true crime or well thought out murder mysteries, avoid this like the plague.

If you're a fan of oprah, jersey and thought "dude where's my car" is a masterpiece, this might just be for you.

I want the hours of my life spent reading this book back.

Stephanie's newest job is to find the elusive Mo, patron Saint of the Burg (at least that's what everyone she asks about him tells her). She becomes the hated by family and friends because Vinnie gives her the Uncle Mo hunt!
Steph's usual lineup is in for the ride with her including ex-hooker turned file clerk Lula and Lula's friend/hooker Jackie. The scene in the parking lot with the three of them is enough to have you laughing out loud.
Add in Ranger and Joe and you're in for a wild ride.
She's got people threatening her for looking for Uncle Mo and is fed up with hearing how great he is and add in a Fast food skip that keeps giving her the slip and you just get started. You'll never see those Fast food characters the same way again.
Add in a horrifying day at the beauty shop and Stephanie is ready to go on a rampage of her own.

This volume is funnier and you can't wait for what happens around each corner.

As always Janet Evanovich brings us a Stephanie Plum book that keeps you glued in for the duration of the book and waiting to find out what happens in the next volume and the next. She's got the gift of keeping us captivated by Stephanie and the gang.
Now, it's just a matter of waiting for each new book for our next Stephanie Plum adventure and well worth it!

Looks like Janet Evanovich has finally found her stride as 'Three to get deadly' so far tops the whole Stephanie Plum series with a great main plot (which is less predictable than many others of the series) and a multitude of Plum antics left and right, that leave no eye dry and doesnt let you off the hook for a single minute.

Our favorite bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum from Trenton, NJ, is once again in top form. This time she has to hunt down Uncle Mo'. No easy feat, as Mo is Trenton's most liked candy store owner, and Stephanie and her vivid and ever present friend Lula learn quickly, that nobody in Trenton is inclined to offer any assistance to her case. As a result, the two girls stumble from one slapstick situation to another until it becomes evident that Uncle Mo is everything else but your friendly candy seller next door.

But if that wasnt enough to turn her life into turmoil, Stephanie's path repeatedly crosses the ways of the two men in Steph's life, that would make her heart shake and her mind turn upside down. For once, there is the Italio-American cop Joe Morelli. He's charming as ever, attractive and protective - and the reader can't help but take pity with Stephanie's hormones each time Joe steps onto the scene. But then there's also Ranger, Stephanie's mentor. Professional, mysterious and matching Joe Morelli wit for wit and heartthrob for heartthrob. That three-way relation let alone could make up for a good story, but of course, Janet Evanovich has way more in mind for our heroine.

So we read more about Steph, her crew and her droll-and-yet-so-normal family, and we learn how challenging (and comical) it can be, if you gotta transport a corpse - especially when it's starting to become stiff as rock - with your Buick (love that car, one of the really great running gags that are so typical for the whole series, much like the guns every girl and grandma seems to be carrying along in Trenton or the ever changing style of Steph's hair, latter not always happening voluntarily). Or we see Steph chasing a chicken (a real big chicken as it is) on the loose through the big mall. And many more. Go, girl, get 'em all!

THREE TO GET DEADLY by Janet Evanovich

Here's the third book in the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich, THREE TO GET DEADLY. In this installment, Stephanie works closely with ex-hooker-turned-office-clerk Lula as she goes in search of missing Moses Bedemeir, an elderly man who owns the neighborhood candy store. The rest of the people in the neighborhood refer to him as Uncle Mo, with great affection, and it seems that Mo can do no wrong.

As in the first two novels, THREE TO GET DEADLY is a tongue-in-cheek book about an amateur bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum who, in desperate need of money, goes after all sorts of shady creatures in order to get paid. With the help of cop Joe Morelli and Ranger the Rambo-like bounty hunter, Stephanie goes after the leads that seem to point to a Mo that is not quite as friendly and sweet as the neighborhood thinks. Along the way she finds her life endangered, is teased and tormented by Morelli, and of course who can resist Grandma Mazur? I personally loved her interaction with her pet hamster Rex. She may have convinced me to get one of my own!

Most of the laughs this time come from the antics of Lula and Stephanie. To Stephanie's chagrin Lula manages to tag along with her during stake outs and break-ins, as Stephanie tries to find out what happened to Mo. Unfortunately, Lula has a hard time being discrete, and the adventures that the two get into had me laughing again as I read along.

As with the previous two books, I am giving THREE TO GET DEADLY a big recommendation. These books are so much fun! I am looking forward to the fourth book, FOUR TO SCORE.

Three is a much better book than Two was, and I enjoyed it immensely. Stephanie is back and she's just as funny and endearing as ever. In this book she's on the track of a candy store salesman, and before she bags her man she turns up numerous dead bodies, and almost gets killed herself numerous times. We also get to see a lot of Ranger in this book, and that's a definite plus. Ranger is awesome. He's like a mysterious black panther that slips and in out of dangerous situations. Through it all Stepahnie manages to maintain her aplomb, and stays focused on her task - Find Mo the candy man, and bring him to justice!