One for the Money
Posted on Friday, April 9th, 2010 at 5:09 am
- ISBN13: 9780312362089
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Welcome to Trenton, New Jersey, home to wiseguys, average Joes, and Stephanie Plum, who sports a big attitude and even bigger money problems (since losing her job as a lingerie buyer for a department store). Stephanie needs cash–fast–but times are tough, and soon she’s forced to turn to the last resort of the truly desperate: family.
Stephanie lands a gig at her sleazy cousin Vinnie’s bail bonding company. She’s got no experience. But that doesn’t matter. Neither does the fact that the bail jumper in question is local vice cop Joe Morelli. From the time he first looked up her dress to the time he first got into her pants to the time Steph hit him with her father’s Buick, M-o-r-e-l-l-i has spelled t-r-o-u-b-l-e. And now the hot guy is in hot water–wanted for murder.
Abject poverty is a great motivator for learning new skills, but being trained in the school of hard knocks by people like psycho prizefighter Benito Ramirez isn’t. Still, if Stephanie can nab Morelli in a week, she’ll make a cool ten grand. All she has to do is become an expert bounty hunter overnight–and keep herself from getting killed before she gets her man.
Stephanie Plum is so smart, so honest, and so funny that her narrative charm could drive a documentary on termites. But this tough gal from New Jersey, an unemployed discount lingerie buyer, has a much more interesting story to tell: She has to say that her Miata has been repossessed and that she’s so poor at the moment that she just drank her last bottle of beer for breakfast. She has to say that her only chance out of her present rut is her repugnant cousin Vinnie and his bail-bond business. She has to say that she blackmailed Vinnie into giving her a bail-bond recovery job worth $10,000 (for a murder suspect), even though she doesn’t own a gun and has never apprehended a person in her life. And she has to say that the guy she has to get, Joe Morelli, is the same creep who charmed away her teenage virginity behind the pastry case in the Trenton bakery where she worked after school.
If that hard-luck story doesn’t sound compelling enough, Stephanie’s several unsuccessful attempts at pulling in Joe make a downright hilarious and suspenseful tale of murder and deceit. Along the way, several more outlandish (but unrelentingly real) characters join the story, including Benito Ramirez, a champion boxer who seems to be following Stephanie Plum wherever she goes.
Janet Evanovich shares an authentic feel for the streets of Trenton in her debut mystery (she developed her talents in a string of romance novels before creating Ms. Plum), and her tough, frank, and funny first-person narrator offers a winning mix of vulgarity and sensitivity. Evanovich is certainly among the best of the new voices to emerge in the mystery field of the 1990s. –Patrick O’Kelley
I read this book at the behest of a co-worker. She hyped it up as a humorous, quick and easy read.
About 50 pages into the book, I got offended by the main character who was a “white woman invading a black man’s gym.” I marked the page and continued to read hoping this would be the last time I read such a remark. Drudging on, the main character approached a man she was to append for skipping bail. The character says “Let’s face it, how many bearded fat white men lived in this neighborhood?” I would have stop reading the book then. Unfortunately, I promised my co-worker to finish the book. So, I kept reading and highlighting. Other references included characters talking “ghetto” and traveling in areas where she was not welcome by her skin color. In the end, I marked over 10 despairing references toward Blacks and Latinos.
This book is horrible. And, someone of us wonders why discrimination still exists. “Leisure” reading like this still perpetuates hate for a good laugh.
Rating: 1 / 5
She is a good writer with good story line. The characters are good with funny dialogue. The violence and sometimes off color language are not needed. This was the first book. I had heard good review about the series but I was disappointed.
Rating: 1 / 5
I have read all twelve of these books and hoping there will be more. The language is pretty graphic but they are so funny you can usually ignore those words. These books can cause you embaesment, since I read where ever I have to sit and wait and you burst out laughing people do stare and wonder if you are losing it. Please we would all like to see more of these
Rating: 1 / 5
I have read all twelve of Janet’s books in the Stephanie Plum series and I am absolutely hooked and am waiting for her latest book to be available in January of 2007. I never used to be an avid reader until I started these books. If you want some light reading that keeps you laughing at the antics of some of the characters these books are for you! I love the way Janet makes these characters seem so real.
Rating: 1 / 5
One For The Money by JE is a good book. Unfortunately my copy, given to my as a gift for my birthday last year from my brother, was destroyed after our basement flooded and it was found on the floor. The cover was torn off by the force of the water and it’s now sitting outside drying on the bbq. I shall have to get another copy. I found this book to be a bit difficult to get into unlike many other mysteries I’ve read from Jessica Fletcher to Sue Grafton. My mom and brother thought I might like this book, but it turned out it’s not quite as exciting as I thought it might be.
Rating: 3 / 5