Monday, November 06, 2006

Twelve Sharp by Janet Evanovich

Welcome to Trenton, New Jersey, where bounty hunter Stephanie Plum's life is about to implode.

FIRST A STRANGER APPEARS While chasing down the usual cast of miscreants and weirdos Stephanie discovers that a crazed woman is stalking her.

THEN THE STRANGER REVEALS HER SECRETS The woman dresses in black, carries a 9mm Glock, and has a bad attitude and a mysterious connection to dark and dangerous Carlos Manoso....street name, Ranger.

NEXT, SOMEBODY DIES The action turns deadly serious, and Stephanie goes from hunting skips to hunting a murderer.

SOON, THE CHASE IS ON Ranger needs Stephanie for more reasons than he can say. And now, the two are working together to find a killer, rescue a missing child, and stop a lunatic from raising the body count. When Stephanie Plum and Ranger get too close for comfort, vice cop Joe Morelli (her on-again, off-again boyfriend) steps in. Will the ticking clock stop at the stroke of twelve, or will a stranger in the wind find a way to stop Stephanie Plum....forever? Filled with Janet Evanovich's trademark action, nonstop adventure, and sharp humor, Twelve Sharp is Janet Evanovich's wildest, hottest novel yet!


So I have had this on my TBR shelf for a while, and as I am lending it to someone I thought I should read it before I send it on, so I picked it up last weekend.

I had seen quite a few reviews that suggested that this was one of the better Plums for a while, and whilst it was good, it wasn't great. It didn't have me rolling around laughing, with tears running down my face as I have been in the past with other Plum books. Maybe that is more about me than about the book, but that's my reaction.

As for the plot...does it really matter. This is Plum after all! Actually it wasn't too bad. A woman turns up at Stephanie's work claiming to be Ranger's wife, and threatening her. So Stephanie has a stalker for a few days..that is until the woman is found dead, and all the clues point to Ranger being the one who killed her. To top things off, somebody close to Ranger has been kidnapped, and it looks like that was Ranger too. Either Ranger has been a very busy boy, or there is more than one of him around!

All the usual gang were here. Lula and Sally Sweet, Tank and Grandma Mazur, fortunately very little mention of Stephanie's sister and family, and all the normal things happen. There are bombs blowing up, FTAs to catch, Ranger and Morelli to choose between. Oh, that's right, she doesn't have to choose between them. I don't know what' s taking her so long. It's a no brainer for me!! Just call me cupcake!! I'd be happy having some of Joe's cake in the morning! It has to be said that one of the funniest scenes in the book for me was when both Ranger and Morelli are wanting to move into her apartment with her. Poor Rex...all that testosterone!

As for character growth, well, there's not a lot of that either! Stephanie still is terrible at her job, Lula and Tank appear to have got it together, Ranger seems to be getting a little softer and Grandma Mazur joins a rock band.

So if there is little character development, all the usual characters and events is it worth reading. I'd still say yes, although I don't know for how many more books.

It's interesting to note that not too long ago it was announced that Janet Evanovich is going to be working on a new series in collaboration with Stephen Cannell. (I originally saw something about this over at He Wrote,She Wrote, but then they also blogged about this over at Dear Author as well.) Not being a huge fan of her collaborations with Charlotte Hughes, I guess that I will be reading the book, but it will be from the library. Speaking of which, Motor Mouth is waiting for me to go and pick up!!

Rating: 3.5/5

4 comments:

  1. I read Motor Mouth and it's in my TBR(eviewed) pile. After the oral surgery I'm about 10 reviews behind. It was just okay. I'm not as big a fan of these books as I am the Plum's and truth be told, I'm new to the world of Plum, because I actually read Metro Girl first, I think.

    I don't like the Full series anymore either. I couldn't even make it through the last one. But, I think 12 was a lot better than 11. There was some character growth for Steph here, not huge. And as for laughs, I think one of the reasons I liked it was because it wasn't just so far out there. Although, Grandma joining the band, that had me laughing. And surprise of all surprises - No blown up car!

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  2. You really read somewhere good reviews of TWELVE SHARP? I've been reading the Plum series from book one and have suffered some ups and downs in the series. (10 was meh, 11 back on track, etc.) However, I was stupified and more than a little irked that a good half of the this book was just regurgiatating back story which wasn't really relevant or necessary to the story and so blatantly filler.

    When I started the Plum series I was taking a risk on Evanovich because I'd read a couple of her books in the Loveswept line and didn't particularly like them, but ONE FOR THE MONEY was getting alot of buzz so I took a leap.

    The only other books I've read of hers are METRO GIRL and MOTOR MOUTH, which I've enjoyed. Both are similar in voice and tone to the Plum series, but don't have the same plot or character depth, IMHO.

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  3. There are quite a few good reviews of Twelve Sharp on Amazon, and I'm sure I saw a few in blogland!

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  4. Not sure if my last post took?? Anyway I said I loved this book, and can't wait for the next Stephanie Plum book to come out ! :)

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