From the back cover:
“Trenton native Stephanie Plum is out of work, out of money, and her car’s in repo-hell. So who does a hardly working girl turn to when the going gets tough? Meet cousin Vinnie, bail bondsman. Stephanie figures it’s nice work if you can get it—shagging bail jumpers for $10,000 a pop. So she joins up.
Her first assignment: nail Joe Morelli, a former vice cop on the run from a charge of murder one. There’s also a cranky ex-prize fighter dogging her and a nasty habit she has of leaping first and looking later. If Stephanie doesn’t wise up fast, the first dead body she sees could be her own.”

Have been handling books in this series via my (former) library job since I started working there. Knew they were very popular, but then so is Danielle Steel [disclaimer: no judgement is meant upon her as a person nor upon her fans, she simply isn’t my cup o’tea]. Finally decided to start reading the series after I leafed through a discard of #5.

Anyway, Evanovich decided to start her character out as a neophyte to the crime-solving business and to pair her up romantically with a vice cop. Good for development, but I hope that the mentor-student aspect doesn’t continue for the rest of the series. I realize that I’m being very picky, but if the mystery-solving involves as much direct danger as Stephanie will be getting herself into, I want her to become more independent and less chick-tied-to-the-tracks. Evanovich may be an entertaining author, but Stephanie is NO Kinsey [take that, Nora Roberts!].

For a first novel, Evanovich has created a likeable heroine, a plot that moves along easily (even for a 1-3:30 AM read),good twists, and colorful secondary characters.

Previously published on BookCrossing.com, 2003