PLUM LUCKY: A Stephanie Plum Between-the-Numbers Novel
Janet Evanovich
St. Martin’s Press
Mystery
ISBN: 9780312377632

• Read an Excerpt

On their way for a midday snack at Cluck-In-A-Bucket, Stephanie Plum and her sidekick, Lula, spot a little old lady tugging a duffel bag from a street corner, kicking and slapping a tiny man in green pants. When he tackles her and wrestles her to the ground, Stephanie realizes it is Grandma Mazur who has just landed a roundhouse swing on the little man’s ears. She wades into the action, pulls him off Grandma and he flees in his car without the bag. Grandma claims that the bag is hers because she found it unattended on the sidewalk, and the nasty little green man tried to grab it. That’s her story and she’s sticking to it. Stephanie and Lula give Grandma and her mysterious bag a ride home and get on with their day.

The next morning, Diesel, the disheveled hunk who walks through walls and clutters Stephanie’s already overburdened romantic life, has just popped unexpectedly into her apartment looking for a place to stay while he tracks down an escaped felon. Stephanie’s mom calls in a panic when Grandma is a no-show for breakfast. The promise of sausages and a cheese omelet lures Diesel and Stephanie to her mother’s, where they find a brochure for Daffy’s Atlantic City casino on Grandma’s dresser. Since Grandma just cashed her Social Security check, it’s no stretch to assume that she has hopped a bus and is off for a day at the slots. However, a quick look around her room reveals that the duffel bag is also missing.

Stephanie drops by the bond agency and picks up Lula and the agency office manager, Connie, in order to make a run to Atlantic City, find Grandma and keep her out of trouble. Diesel is having little luck locating his felon, and when they put pieces of information together, it begins to sound like Grandma’s purloined duffel bag, the little green man and Diesel’s fugitive may be connected.

So begins another “Between-the-Numbers” Stephanie Plum holiday comic novel. Grandma, convinced it was leprechaun money and therefore legal loot, buys herself a Winnebago camper and heads for Atlantic City, where she rents a luxury suite at the Daffy Casino. She proceeds to blow what is left of the duffel bag booty, which turns out to contain a million dollars of stolen drug money, into the poker slots. The man in green pants, who has a soft spot for the horses, had liberated the money and a racehorse owned by a Trenton mobster. His plan is to pay for surgery for the champion who has outlived his studliness and faces the glue factory unless somebody will pay to fix a bad leg.

PLUM LUCKY evolves into a caper involving stashing a stolen, injured but housebroken racehorse in a hotel suite, a Winnebago trailer, several elevators and Stephanie’s apartment; dodging the baddest mob guy in Trenton; keeping track of the little guy in green pants who thinks he’s invisible; Diesel, who can be invisible when he wants to be; Lula; Connie; Stephanie; and Grandma Mazur and her Winnebago. And of course, the blue Buick.

You may recall the Christmas stocking stuffer treat, VISIONS OF SUGAR PLUMS, and the Valentine’s Day confection with the infamous Trenton Bakery Elf cookie battle in PLUM LOVIN’, when Stephanie turned into a matchmaker. PLUM LUCKY celebrates St. Patrick’s Day as Grandma’s leprechaun gold turns to horse biscuits. Fans can’t help but wonder what Janet Evanovich will do with April Fool’s Day. I can imagine puzzle-meister Sally Sweet in his big hair and five-inch heels cooking up a prank to dazzle us all.

    --- Reviewed by Roz Shea

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