LEAN MEAN THIRTEEN
Janet Evanovich
St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Mystery
Hardcover: 0312349491
Paperback: 9780312349509

• Read an Excerpt

Stephanie Plum is in deep trouble this time. She is wanted for questioning in the disappearance of her philandering ex-husband, Dickie Orr. It all started when she reluctantly agreed to do a favor for Ranger, owner of RangeMan Surveillance and her sometime-bounty hunting partner. He asked her to plant a bug on Dickie so they could track his suspicious activities, figuring she could get close enough to stash the device on his person easier than, say, a hulking male dressed in ninja black.

It all goes south when Stephanie shows up at his law office with a trumped-up ruse for legal advice with her sidekick, Lula. As she gets close enough to drop the bug in his coat pocket, she spots a picture of Dickie snuggling her nemesis, Joyce Barnhardt. She goes postal, and when last observed by an office full of witnesses, she had him in a chokehold on the floor. Hours later, building occupants report hearing shots, and Dickie goes missing, leaving behind a trail of blood and Stephanie without an alibi.

She explains the incident to her cop boyfriend Morelli, who is the one to deliver the news that she’s the prime suspect.

Stephanie: “I sort of lost it when I saw a picture of Dickie and Joyce Barnhardt. He had it on his desk.”

Morelli: “I thought you were over Dickie.”

Stephanie: “Turns out there was some hostility left.”

Ranger and Morelli, who both know she’d love to kill Dickie but probably wouldn’t, team up to extricate her from Dickie’s enemies and suspicion from the police.

Dickie --- who, despite his law degree, has never been too bright --- has unwittingly become a front for a money-laundering scheme involving a group of drug and gun runners. When his law partners also start turning up missing, and Stephanie discovers them barbequed by a psycho with a flame-thrower, things turn ugly for Stephanie, not to mention Dickie, if he’s still alive.

Morelli is assigned a secret undercover job by the Trenton Police force, so he reluctantly turns Stephanie over to Ranger for safekeeping. This is not something he is comfortable with, as anyone who has been following the romantic exploits of our trio will know. With Dickie’s enemies hot on her trail, the safest place for Stephanie is on the RangeMan payroll. When flamethrower guy shows up at her apartment, what’s a girl to do but move into Ranger’s penthouse (affectionately known as the bat cave)?

While the scenario might sound familiar, the action in LEAN MEAN THIRTEEN sizzles. Stephanie and company are caught in one of the fastest paced and tightly plotted comedy thrillers in Evanovich’s string of bestsellers, which span 13 novels in as many years. Her heroine and fellow characters never age and are forever moored in Trenton, New Jersey, the setting for this wildly popular series. Their relationships and experience expand with each new romp.

Hollywood saw the potential of this kooky cast and picked up the movie rights as early as the first paperback, ONE FOR THE MONEY. Will this newest rousing action/adventure finally make it to the big screen? Who knows what makes Tinseltown tick, but with summer adventure movies drawing big box office numbers and current action heroes showing their age, the youthful Trenton trio of Stephanie, Morelli and Ranger could spawn a new generation of comedy/romance adventure flicks. Just a thought.

   --- Reviewed by Roz Shea

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