Hard Eight

Janet Evanovich

Average Rating 8/10 (1 Review)

Stephanie Plum, the bombshell bounty hunter of Trenton, New Jersey, thinks she already has problems. Her relationship with gorgeous cop Joe Morelli is so complicated it's now over. Plus, she's called in her attractive, if terrifying, mentor and tormentor Ranger once too often to deal with difficult fugitives, and Ranger is ready to collect his reward.

But Stephanie can always count on her family to add to her troubles. Though her mother hates Stephanie's Job - no one else's daughter shoots people for a living - and Grandma Mazur wants to ride shotgun on every pickup, when the pair gang up to insist she finds their neighbours missing granddaughter Evelyn and her child Annie, Stephanie can't refuse. Mabel Markowltz signed a custody bond guaranteeing Annie would stay in Trenton after her parents' acrimonious divorce. Now Evelyn and Annie have disappeared, Mabel will lose her house to True Blue Bail Bonds Agency.

If following Evelyn's and Annie's trail was going to be simple, however, Stephanie's competitors would have found them days ago. She's perturbed to find a Ranger-trained babe on the case for True Blue Bonds, and petrified when property lord and war game fanatic Eddie Abruzzi expresses his own sinister interest in tracking Evelyn down. Where have they gone? What does Abruzzi really want from them? And why is a giant rabbit stalking Steph?

Witty, fresh and full of surprises, Hard Eight is Janet Evanovich's most explosive thriller yet - and Stephanie's funniest misadventure. The world of Plum has never been wilder.

Review by Chrissi (010802) Rating (8/10)

Review by Chrissi
Rating 8/10
Stephanie is back, only her cars and her men are struggling to keep up with her. Her relationship with Joe is in the doldrums because she will not give up her job and marry him to settle down, while he is being stubborn and feels that it is not a suitable life for his wife to be living. The result is an impasse, with the relationship being held in a no mans land. This does allow, however, for the not quite kind of relationship that Stephanie has had with Ranger to be explored a little further.

Stephanie is looking for her parents' next door neighbours' granddaughter and her child. They have gone missing in spite of a bond designed to prevent people from absconding with their children. Stephanie starts by agreeing that she can look for the woman and her child but then she finds that other people are looking too, and they are not the kind o people that you might expect to take an interest in the welfare and safety of a child and her mother.

Like the other stories, Stephanie meets some real whack jobs, but apart from Lula, she seems not to have kept in touch with any of her friends from previous stories. Here, we meet a lawyer who manages to get stuck in a dryer at the launderette - I laughed so hard, I really did, he must be the human equivalent of Bob the golden retriever, who is still living with Morelli.

I have only one gripe about this, the lady whose granddaughter is missing is Mabel Markowitz, who lives in the other side of her parents duplex, but in one of the early books, it was Mrs Ciak who lived next door and painted her house strange, end of line colours, because she could not afford full price paint. It just bugged me a little, that's all. Do you not think it sad that I can remember stuff like that when I forget all sorts of really useful things?
Chrissi (1st August 2002)