Hot Six

Rating:
Summary: HOT SIX is one HOT READ!
Review: Stephanie, Joe, and Ranger are back, marking the sixth in the "Stephanie Plum" series. From the closing of "High Five" the reader was left with the picture of Stephanie in a "hot" little black dress and someone saying "..nice dress, take it off." The reader has waited a year to discover who that person is. I'm not telling! As for the rest of the story...Trenton, NJ is still full of Characters who forget their court dates, one of whom is RANGER! The book is awash with the usual wonderfully whacky people who make Stephanie's job as a bounty hunter so challenging .PLUS....Stephanie's grandmother driving! This marks the official start of summer...DON'T MISS this BOOK, but you have to read 1-2-3-4-& 5 in order to appreciate "HOT SIX."

Rating:
Summary: HOT SIX by Janet Evanovich
Review: This latest entry in the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich is hilarious and fully up to her usual standards. Fans who have followed Stephanie's progress as a bounty hunter will be proud of her as she tackles some of the biggest challenges in her new career: bringing in a homicidal rapist FTA, babysitting a friend's dog, and providing room and board to Grandma Mazur. If you liked HIGH FIVE, you'll love HOT SIX. And yes, you'll find out who was at the door.

Rating:
Summary: "Boy was it worth the wait"
Review: For a year now, Janet has kept us waiting and hoping and discussing what actually happened at the end of "High Five." Well, now we know, and it was well worth the wait. Stephanie, Joe, Ranger, and the gang are back in another funny, quirky outing for Trenton's most challenged bounty hunter. This time Steph has to find Ranger, who is wanted by the cops (and Steph's favorite cop, Joe Morelli) and an assorted bunch of bad guys because of his alleged involvement in the murder of a mobster. Did he do it? Can she find him? Can she stay a step ahead of the others? Can she solve the murder? Can she make up her mind between the two men in her life? Well, it's a wonderful laugh-a-minute romp, as only Janet Evanovich can write. Can hardly wait until (Wild, Deadly, whatever?) Seven in 2001!

Rating:
Summary: A hilariously good time!
Review: "You've got a pip of a life," Grandma said. "Never a dull moment. Fast cars, fast men, fast food. I wouldn't mind having a life like that."

And grandma means it. She sets out (bless her heart) to have a life just LIKE that!

Think of Hot Six as a mystery drenched in comic relief. Stephanie Plum is an unusual heroine with an unusual job description. She is a bounty hunter. She is also surrounded by a cast of unusual and very indiscreet characters, her "on-again-off-again" love interest police officer Joe Morelli, her 200+ pound side kick Lula, her "mentor-turned-murder-suspect" Ranger (who also contributes to her self-diagnosed "nymphomania"), a dog named Bob who has a ghastly eating disorder, and her less than cooperative grandmother who temporarily moves in on her (and tries to mimic Stephanie's sex life). This makes for one roaring good time, but lest we forget, there is still a mystery to be solved here!

And a whopping good mystery it is...Stephanie is forced to help her mentor, the man who taught her everything she knows about "fugitive apprehension" try to clear his name as a murder suspect. She also has to shoo away the killers who are trying to track her down, and avoid blowing up another car. You'll have fun keeping track of all the antics and mayhem, as well as the seriousnness of the case she is trying to solve.

With all the laughs in the first few pages, it's hard to believe that this could get any funnier, (just wait until grandma moves in...)but this book had me rolling right until the last page. The ending with Bella and Mrs Morelli nearly set me into a permanent laughing fit.

I was impressed with how Evanovich moved the plot along as well as the comedic dialogue. Her characters are very colorful, the plot is solid and the pace is smooth. This was a major departure for me, but I thoroughly enjoyed the diversion and can't wait to get my hands on Evanovich's next Stephanie Plum adventure!

Highly recommended...even for you fellow "suspense-thriller" loyalists

Cris

Rating:
Summary: Sparkle Hayter is Better & Funnier !!!!
Review: I finally got around to reading Evanovich. My expectations were high, probably because her books are always on the best seller lists and are always checked out at my local library. I was amazed to discover what juvenile and boring drivel her work is. For those who have convinced themselves they like Evanovich I recommend they try Sparkle Hayter's Robin Hudson novels which are 100% better than any Evanovich. The titles to look for are:
What's A Girl Gotta Do?, Nice Girls Finish Last, The Last Manly Man, Revenge of the Cootie Girls, and The Chelsea Girl Murders.

Rating:
Summary: Fun, easy read
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Hot Six Sizzles
Review: Janet Evanovich does it again. The sixth book in the Stephanie Plum series, HOT SIX, met most of my expectations. I am always disappointed when these books end and experience a feeling of being let-down. Personally, I think the books should be double the length!

In HOT SIX, Stephanie deals with a smorgasbord of personal relationship problems. She is suckered into being a dog owner; Grandma Mazure moves in; Joe wants some "quality time", and Ranger drops by whenever he feels like it, much like a ghost.

The main plot line of the book is Stephanie's unofficial search for Ranger who is suspected of killing a major crime figure. She refuses to take the case and only wants to reassure herself that Ranger is a) okay and b) he didn't commit the crime he's posted bond on. Her archenemy Joyce Barnhart is then given the case and Stephanie's subtle means of thwarting Joyce's attempts at catching Ranger are priceless and sprinkled throughout the book.

Grandma's attempts at single living (albeit it with Stephanie) are all good for laughs. Her one-liners crack me up.

Joe's growing devotion to Stephanie is getting interesting, but I admit, it wouldn't be as interesting if Ranger weren't thrown in the mix.

Ranger magically appears and disappears when he needs to see Stephanie, and he does manage to sneak in a kiss that was very well written. He enlists Stephanie's help in finding out some things that may clear him, but then orders her to stay away when she becomes a target.

The addition of Bob, the dog, creates some unusually funny background.

But leave it to Stephanie. She manages (by accident) to become the cigarette chauffeur for a crime lord while she is staking out his son!

The fun I have reading these books is priceless. My 18-year old daughter bought her own set of books to take to California with her because she loves them, too. I have heard there may be a movie made from these characters, and I can't wait, but hope the movie industry doesn't spoil the uniqueness and character of these lovable books.


Rating:
Summary: WORLD'S MOST INEPT (BUT LOVEABLE) BOUNTY HUNTER
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: So much fun! Please keep these books coming!
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: Ranger = HOTT!
Review: 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.