Review: Explosive Eighteen – Stephanie Plum

Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich
Series:  Stephanie Plum #18
Release Date:  November 22, 2011
Publisher:   Bantam
Page Count:  320
Source:  Barnes and Noble, via my wallet
Buy the book at: Amazon 

 Before Stephanie can even step foot off Flight 127 Hawaii to Newark, she’s knee deep in trouble. Her dream vacation turned into a nightmare, and she’s flying back to New Jersey solo. Worse still, her seatmate never returned to the plane after the L.A. layover. Now he’s dead, in a garbage can, waiting for curbside pickup. His killer could be anyone. And a ragtag collection of thugs and psychos, not to mention the FBI, are all looking for a photograph the dead man was supposed to be carrying.

Only one other person has seen the missing photo—Stephanie Plum. Now she’s the target, and she doesn’t intend to end up in a garbage can. With the help of an FBI sketch artist Stephanie re-creates the person in the photo. Unfortunately the first sketch turns out to look like Tom Cruise, and the second sketch like Ashton Kutcher. Until Stephanie can improve her descriptive skills, she’ll need to watch her back.

Over at the bail bonds agency things are going from bad to worse. The bonds bus serving as Vinnie’s temporary HQ goes up in smoke. Stephanie’s wheelman, Lula, falls in love with their largest skip yet. Lifetime arch nemesis Joyce Barnhardt moves into Stephanie’s apartment. And everyone wants to know what happened in Hawaii?

Morelli, Trenton’s hottest cop, isn’t talking about Hawaii. Ranger, the man of mystery, isn’t talking about Hawaii.  And all Stephanie is willing to say about her Hawaiian vacation is . . . It’s complicated.

This book took me back to why I love this series.  No, the Morelli vs. Ranger situation didn’t get resolved (a bit of a let down but it was finally nice to see that Morelli can fight for what he wants), but this one took us back to those days in the middle of the series where Stephanie was truly knee deep in crap that she’s accidentally fallen in.  You know, where the whole storyline is about someone(s) trying to kill her.  Those were the Stephanie Plum days that I loved.  Plus, we get a whole lot of Lula being the sidekick that I truly wish I had…just for the comic relief.

So the story….

Stephanie is fleeing Hawaii, leaving behind a mess she doesn’t want to deal with.  When she gets home, she finds an envelope with a picture of a guy in it.  She has no clue who the guy is so she throws it into the garbage with a protesting Grandma Mauzer watches in agony.

Turns out a lot of people want that picture.  Stephanie soon has 2 hired goons pretending to be FBI trying to get it, the real FBI wanting their hands on it, crazy Razzle Dazzle attacking Stephanie to get it and finally crazy hair dresser Brenda hounding her for it.  No one believes her when she says she doesn’t have it, so following, chasing and attacking ensue.  Classic Stephanie Plum.

Stephanie and Rex still need to eat, so she does need to continue on with her day job and try to catch her skips.  This is when the Lula factor comes into play.  She’s just as outrageous and overtop as ever, which has you laughing at every third line that comes from her fictional mouth.  If it’s not that, it’s the description of what she’s wearing.

Let me set the stage…

Lula has decided she is going to channel her inner Ranger and dress in black just like him.  Here’s her first foray into Lula Ranger.

I glance at Lula.  She was dressed in black.  Black faux lizard-skin cowboy boots, black jeans that looked like they were painted on her, black tank top with an acre of boob squishing out.  Pink hair.
My curiosity was raised.  “What’s with the black?”  I wanted to know.  “You never wear all black.”
“I told you yesterday, I’m gettin’ serious.  I’m not takin’ this job lightly no more.  I’m channeling my inner Ranger, and I’m wearing black like him.  I figure he’s on to something with the black deal.”

I laughed at this book more than I have the previous few.  It was good to see the characters going back to what they used to be.  I would really like to see the whole Ranger/Morelli thing finished (I love them both but how long can one woman be torn between two men???), but based on this ending I’m not going to get my hopes up.

Still a very entertaining read that will having you laughing out loud and wondering if a trip the Burg will net you some crazy friends like Stephanie’s.