Just Finished Reading Janet Evanovich's One For the Money

Janet Evanovich is a mystery writer whose books I have been running across on library and bookstore shelves for many years but until just now never got around to reading any.  She is best-known for her Stephanie Plum series, which numbers twenty-three books so far and, like James Patterson's Women's Murder Club series, contains each book's number in the series within its title.  I decided to start with the first book and just finished reading One For the Money, originally published in 1994...

In One For the Money, Stephanie Plum is introduced as a young Trenton, New Jersey woman who finds herself unemployed and quickly running out of money...her car has just been repossessed.  Her mother, whom she visits for meals from time to time, is hilarious as is Grandma Mazur...the dialogue is classic "Jersey thing".  The name of Stephanie's slimy uncle Vinnie is brought up: he is a bail bondsman and apparently there is an office worker position open.  Against her better instincts, Stephanie gives in to her mother's prodding and goes there, only to find the job already filled.  But while there she discovers that she can make big money fast by bringing in bail dodgers...so with some slimy arm-twisting of her own, she convinces her skeptical uncle to let her try out some cases.  As it turns out, the one case that she becomes obsessed with involves a former one-time lover of hers, Joe Morelli, a policeman who has jumped bail after being charged with the murder of an unarmed man.  And here is where I leave off, just in case you're in the same boat as myself and feel like finally picking up a Janet Evanovich book and reading it...

Janet Evanovich adds an interesting twist to the mystery genre with Stephanie Plum's bounty hunter vocation...contrast this with the private detectives and homicide investigators in other series.  And she starts out her new career in complete ignorance, having to learn the hard way: through her many and often comical mistakes.  Fortunately there is Ranger, another bounty hunter working for Vinnie, who helps her out with various aspects...some of them legally suspect...of the trade.  I liked One For the Money because the characters were realistic and sympathetic and...I have to admit I like this in a book...it was relatively short.  But what I liked the most was when Stephanie would visit her parents and Grandma Mazur for dinner, and all that terrific Jersey conversation would ensue...