Pro: Entertaining
for a few hours.
Con: Actually,
not much with this one.
The Bottom Line:
I don’t know if it’s because I’ve read this one before or not, but the one was
much more tolerable than others.
I first read this book in 2012 and only vaguely remembered
it. All I knew was that there was gold buried in someone’s flowerbeds…that’s
pretty much it. Even then I wasn’t sure if that was right. But since I’m doing
Janet Evanovich September, I figured I ought to go back and read it again in
order to do a proper review. You’d think I might be keen on skipping out on the
rest of the books since they’re getting a bit repetitive, but they don’t take
long to read, and after this one, I’m hopeful for the next two.
Stephanie is looking for Geoffrey Cubbins. Apparently he
stole $5 million from the retirement place he worked for and got busted. Except
after going into a hospital for appendicitis, he disappeared and no one knows
how. As she looks for Cubbins, Ranger’s been getting cryptic threatening
messages and wants Stephanie’s help. Here’s hoping that between exploding cars,
other tricky skips, and Morelli sexy time, Stephanie can solve the case, get
her man, and get home by dinner.
The Cubbins mystery was kind of weird, but interesting,
though I’m not sure why the bad guys would go after people that would be
actively looking for them. Still, it’s nice that it was a multi-layered mystery
even if it’s ultimately not too hard to figure out what’s going on. Though, to
be fair, I didn’t figure out (or remember) how Cubbins got out of the hospital.
The Ranger thing was also interesting, though not much of a
mystery, but that’s okay. The guy wasn’t exactly hiding his intentions, and
Ranger had already figured out who it was, so it was just a matter of waiting
for him to show up.
We get a nice little list of characters showing up and being
useful in interesting ways, such as Randy Briggs, and Stephanie finally utilizes
the toys that Ranger gives her without balking about it (too much). Though I
still think she’s dumb for not staying at Ranger’s for the duration of being
stalked by a psycho – her only reason is that she’s worried about sleeping with
Ranger. Frankly, my priorities are not being murdered in terrible ways first,
cheating on (sometimes) boyfriend second. But hey, then we wouldn’t have certain
sections of the book, so it’s acceptable.
I don’t think I was as amused as I used to be with the first
several books, but this is book #19 and it’s all the things we’ve seen before.
At the very least I noticed that I was nowhere near as annoyed with things as I
was with Wicked Charms. Stephanie
actually shows real fear, isn’t afraid to call for the cops or other help, and
characters act like they (mostly) ought to in various situations. She also
doesn’t get ridiculously quippy when in said situations. If she talks, it’s to
stall for time until the cavalry can arrive or at least gain some information,
and there’s enough description around to fill us in that she’s freaking out and
trying to think of other alternatives to not dying.
So I’d give this book 4 out of 5 stars. On to the next!
NT
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