Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich

c Waterloo Public Library 2008

Speaking of guilty pleasures....there is a new Stephanie Plum novel. Fearless Fourteen is full of the characters we've come to know and love: former 'ho and sidekick Lula, Grandma Mazur, Stephanie's mom and dad, Connie (the secretary/office manager of Vinnie's Bond Enforcement Office), and the two men in Stephanie's life--cop Joe and Ranger. As the story begins, Stephanie and Lula capture Loretta (one of Joe's cousins)after first talking her out of committing suicide; she's depressed and stressed as a single mother. The only way that Stephanie can get her to agree to turn herself in is if Stephanie promises to pick up Loretta's son, Mario (aka Zook) after school.

So Stephanie agrees--and as always, gets more than she bargained for, because no one bails Loretta out, so she ends up taking Zook to Joe's house. She's already agreed to do a job for Ranger: it turns out the job is serving as security for an aging singer/actress named Brenda who is in town on tour. In between escorting Brenda to various events, Stephanie deals with a stalker named Gary, reconnects with an old friend from High School Mooner, finds out that Zook is into online gaming, and tries to cope with Lula who has decided it's time to get married to boyfriend Tank. When Loretta gets released and then kidnapped, her brother Dom tells Stephanie that Joe is Zook's father, because Dom saw Joe fooling around in the garage with his sister. To complicate matters, it turns out that Dom was recently released from prison: he had been part of a major bank robbery and the money (all nine million dollars) was never found. The rumor is that it was either hidden in Aunt Rose's house (which Joe inherited) or that there is an important clue to its location hidden there.

As the days pass, Stephanie needs help with Zook and takes him to her parents' house: it turns out that Grandma Mazur has been getting into gaming and she and Zook hit it off big time. There's no sign of Loretta until someone throws a brick with a little box attached through Joe's window--and they find one of Loretta's toes inside, along with a threatening note. A dead body shows up in Joe's basement, people start digging up the yard in hopes of finding the money, Mooner and Gary (the stalker) start hanging out with Zook and Stephanie feels like she is running a dysfunctional day care center. Joe has his hands full at work and actually hires Mooner and Gary to protect the homefront from would be diggers, and they stock up on potatoes for the potato cannon.

Fearless Fourteen is another fun romp in the world of Stephanie Plum's Trenton, New Jersey.

Fearless Fourteen was just released in mid-June; it's available on CD-book at the WPL while there are multiple copies of the book on the CFL 7 day new shelf.