What better way is there to spend an afternoon than curled up on a couch reading about the train wreck that is Stephanie Plum's life? I just finished reading Janet Evanovich's Explosive Eighteen (#166) and it didn't disappoint.
Stephanie headed for Hawaii at the end of Smokin' Seventeen, but at the beginning of Explosive Eighteen she's fleeing the vacation from hell in Hawaii, and she doesn't want to talk about it to anyone. Not to her sidekick Lula, not to her family, and not to the FBI or anyone else who is asking about her trip home. Just because she found a photo in her bag that doesn't belong to her or mean anything to her doesn't mean that she's going to hang on to it, so she tosses it in the trash at her parents' house. Stephanie doesn't at first connect the photo to her seatmate who didn't get back on the plane at LAX and is later found dead, stuffed into a garbage can after multiple people show up at her doorstep demanding she hand it over to them. Trouble just seems to follow Stephanie around. And why are Stephanie, Morelli and Ranger all mad at each other? Could it have anything to do with the missing tan line on her ring finger?
And all along the way are the skips that Stephanie tries to bring in, including her lifelong nemesis Joyce Barnhardt. How does she of all people wind up camped out in Stephanie's apartment? But conditions are better there than at the Bail Bonds office. The temporary RV Vinnie was using has mysteriously burned to the ground, the coffee shop isn't working out as a temporary office, but the place that they do rent short term provides a climax to the story that had me laughing out loud. And by the end, things are starting to look up again for Stephanie. The only problem is that by the time I finish reading one of these books, I have a real craving for Cluck-in-a-Bucket. Excuse me while I go find some fried chicken...
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