Hardcore Twenty-Four Book Review

I went to the library to get some books on reserves and the newspapers and I saw a book on the new release section while I was getting my other things.  Hardcore Twenty-Four: A Stephanie Plum Novel by Janet Evanovich was calling to me from across the room with it's bright orange cover.  I wanted to run over and grab it because I have been waiting for the book for awhile and I knew that I still had a few more in front of me to wait.  Although when I checked, I am now only 20th down in the list so it wasn't too much longer to wait!!  Great news is that I already read it so I can take myself off the list so someone else will get it sooner.  I think that when I signed up, I was like 650 people back so it does move quickly enough and save me the money of buying the book for myself that takes me one day to read.

Trouble comes in bunches for Stephanie Plum. First, professional grave robber and semi-professional loon, Simon Diggery, won’t let her take him in until she agrees to care for his boa constrictor, Ethel. Stephanie’s main qualification for babysitting an extremely large snake is that she owns a stun gun—whether that’s for use on the wandering serpent or the petrified neighbors remains to be seen.

Events take a dark turn when headless bodies start appearing across town. At first, it’s just corpses from a funeral home and the morgue that have had the heads removed. But when a homeless man is murdered and dumped behind a church Stephanie knows that she’s the only one with a prayer of catching this killer.

If all that’s not enough, Diesel’s back in town. The 6-foot-tall, blonde-haired hunk is a man who accepts no limits—that includes locked doors, closed windows and underwear. Trenton’s hottest cop, Joe Morelli isn’t pleased at this unexpected arrival nor is Ranger, the high-powered security consultant who has his own plans for Stephanie.

As usual Jersey’s favorite bounty hunter is stuck in the middle with more questions than answers. What’s the deal with Grandma Mazur’s latest online paramour? Who is behind the startling epidemic of mutilated corpses? And is the enigmatic Diesel’s sudden appearance a coincidence or the cause of recent deadly events?  

I love this series.  It makes me laugh out loud every time that I have gotten one of these books because Stephanie Plum can't have anything go right for her.  Her car is stolen and she goes through a few more cars in the book but you have to pick up the book to find out how because it is a given that she makes horrible decisions that lead to some of her crisis and others are out of her control.  She is in a relationship with her cop boyfriend, Joe Morelli, while Diesel is living in her apartment and she runs to Ranger to get help when needed to avoid all of her problems.  Stephanie's job is a bond enforcement agent so she is chasing down bad guys the whole time.  She is actually seeming to get a little better at her job because she catches quite a few during the course of this book although there are ups and downs to what she does because she is often soft hearted and lets people wait through different things like the one that she caught and he shot himself in the foot so she didn't take him right to jail.  I couldn't stop laughing throughout this one and I highly recommend this great series.  I am a little sad that there are no more books out and I was much happier at the beginning of the series when I got to go from one book to the next but I am patiently waiting for the next book to be published.  I hope that you check out this book and all the others in the series!