Time for another rambling YAY! Today I'm gonna share my super deep thoughts on the second book in the Stephanie Plum series,
Two for the Dough by Janet Evanovich. Read this one because of a combination of needing a bit of light heartedness, need to get the books back to their rightful owner (there coming Kelsey I promise!), and I just really enjoyed the first one. As always SPOILERS AHEAD!
We find our favorite bond girl Stephanie Plum still single, still broke, still in need of skills, but a little less desperate this time around. She is put on the case of Kenny Mancuso, a guy who shot his friend in the knee, as the Vinny the owner of the bond company (and Steph's cousin) felt it would be an easy nab. This all goes very quickly down hill when people start showing up dead. Meanwhile,
Stephanie's special friend Joe Morelli (the guy she chased down the last time around) has been reinstated to the police force and is working on a special case that may or may not involve the people Stephanie is following. He also likes to show up on our girls doorstep with plenty of innuendo's, but mostly he ends up helping. One of the people involved in the case is Spiro Constantine, a super skeevy guy who hires Stephanie to help protect him and his funeral home and to find some missing caskets. To add to all the chaos, Steph's spunky grandmother get's a gun and starts "helping" her granddaughter. The longer the hunt goes on, the more we realize Kenny is as crazy as they come and he more then enjoy's inflicting pain on people. We discover that Kenny and co have been smuggling discarded Army weapons and selling them on the black market. This all culminates with Stephanie and her grandmother held by the bad guys in the basement of the funeral home, only to escape when granny goes Clint Eastwood on the baddies ending in their arrest. All is well that ends well and Stephanie and her peeps live to star in the next book.
Obviously a ton more detail happens in the book, but I think you can get the gist of things from the above synopsis. I enjoyed this book as much as the first one for many of the same reasons. Again the combination of realism, down homeyness, light heartedness, and on occasion sheer over the topness just really work for me. I LOVED the added extra grandma in this book, she is spunky, crazy, yet still age appropriate if that makes any sense. She and Steph had a definite bond that the rest of the family just don't understand, and the fact that Stephanie doesn't automatically write her off because she is older makes me do a happy dance. Stephanie and Joe's relationship makes me smile, it is going much slower then I would have originally thought, but it is not drawn out for the sake of the book or series, it's just how it is. I like their frustration with each other on a professional level, with him wanting to protect her...and at the same time probably toss her from the top of a
skyscraper...again fairly realistic. Cars once again play a significant role in the book, with Stephanies being stolen early on, forcing her to use her uncle's boat of a Buick with some hilarious results. The issue of violence, especially against women was shown again, not as much as with the last book, but again shown as a bad thing that should NEVER be ignored, allowed, or excused. I liked this book as much as the last one and felt it was a very natural progression. I felt things moved forward at a reasonable pace with Stephanie learning, but still not super girl, with relationships moving forward, but not magically perfect and with plenty of stories left to tell. I give this book an 8 out of 10 severed members...read the book, it will make sense.
What is your happy series go to? What other books combine realism and humor in a good way? Why did I write this post like a lingo hipster chick?
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