One for the Money: International Edition

After seeing reviews comparing almost every series I’ve ever liked to Stephanie Plum, I figured I would love this series. Nope. I tend to enjoy a bit of a bumbling, but likeable, character mixed in with a twisty and interesting mystery – this is not that. Stephanie’s behavior is just plain idiotic. I found her to be completely brainless, spineless, and annoying. The “mystery” part of the book was predictable, suspenseless, and I only finished the book because I really, really, REALLY wanted to like it. Unfortunately, I really, really hated it.

Lazy Review Time – since this came out forever ago and there are a bazillion reviews

This series has 20+ books in it. I can see what it has been so popular over the years. It is just a good time wrapped up in a ball and transported to the 90s. A time when New Jersey was known for garbage and hydrocarbons and people still had answering machines and no cell phones.YES we used to live like that.

Stephanie Plum is a fun character and this was a pretty good introductory book with funny shenanigans as she tries to figure out how to be a bounty hunter. She makes some pretty big mistakes that lead to a little bit of hilarity along the way. She is easy to like and I had a good time hanging out with her as she learns the ropes Eliza Doolittle style from a guy named Ranger that I could help but picture in my head as Dog the Bounty Hunter.

A few things I liked:

– The Nostalgia I felt for the 90s

– The hinted at future romantic interest *crosses finger* I really liked Morelli and hope they Play Train sooner rather than later.

– Crazy Shenanigans i.e. hitting the boy who took your virginity and didnt call with your car a few years later. (dont worry he was okay)

– Crazy Grandmas. I love funny and ridiculous family members so this fit the bill well

– Totally creepy psychopaths. The messed up in the head bad guy is a bit deranged and pretty scary.

Definitely and easy fun and funny read with a little drama and suspense.

One was enough. Filthy language from beginning to end. A gun is fired twice in her apartment , someone new at shooting nails five shots to a heart. This is same apartment a women is almost killed and hung on fire escape. Cops find one bad guy on the same fire escape. A car is bombed outside. Stephanie didn’t need to go looking just stay home most of it showed up at her place anyway. One was enough I won’t be buying another.

This was a gift for my wife to whom I frequently gift books. I had heard of this series in the past and the new movie was coming out at the time. We got this reprinted large paperback edition for the movie’s release. She had never read any of the books in the series.

She’s read many more of them since then, and states that she can’t really remember how the series started. As with any good series, your memories of the characters tend to change over time with the story so it’s understandable. Obviously this means that it’s a worthwhile series and a recommended read.

4 stars for the book, and 4 stars for the product. I hate stickers that don’t come off clean and the back right corner has a sticker that will leave the book needing some TLC so -1 star.

With fast scene changes and a main character that is both frivolous and fun, this book is a good one for pure enjoyment, for just kicking back and going with the flow. Stephanie Plum makes decisions on the fly, with not much concentrated intellectual effort, but that suits the environment and job function she finds herself in. She is a Jersey chick that finds that she must sometimes do things that are totally out of character and in steep contrast with her upbringing. Her breaking of tradition, her negation of her past regimentation, makes this story fascinating and worth the time for its perusal.

Adapting to frightening situations with sometimes bold innovation and an absence of timidity, Stephanie is both a risk taker and one who hedges her bets along the way with subtasks that assist in sustaining her financially as she seeks to attain her major goal. This goal is to capture an acquaintance, a guy she ****ed in her younger years, and who has skipped bail on murder charges and seemingly wants to prove his innocence.

Along the way Stephanie steals his vehicle, discarding the jalopy she started off with, and encounters unsavory and purely evil characters that make the reader want to enter a bathroom for a date with the commode. But Stephanie deals with the creeps and bums that enter into her circle of protected space and decrease its radius with skill and daring, and for readers who admire such traits in a woman, especially male readers, a voluntary sharing of their personal space would be both natural and desirable.

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