Split Second: Thirty-two Switcheroo is the latest installment in the iconic and generally hilarious Stephanie Plum mystery series. For the uninitiated, Stephanie is a bounty hunter. Her cousin Vinnie runs a bail bond business; Stephanie’s job begins when they fail to turn up in court. It’s her job, and that of her close friend and side kick Lula, to hunt them down and bring them in. She works on commission, so to speak, and so she’s motivated, though not always skillful. Here’s a sample of Evanovich’s prose that describes Vinnie:
“The back door to the office crashed open and Vinnie walked in. Vinnie is the human equivalent of a ferret in a sharkskin suit with tight pants and pointy-toes shoes. His hair is black and slicked back. He cheats at cards. He cheats on his wife…He’s a boil on the backside of my family, but his skill as a bail bondsman is unquestionable. His father-in-law, Harry the Hammer, owns the bail bonds agency, and he also owns Vinnie.”
My thanks go to NetGalley and Atria Books for the review copy. This book will be available to the public on Tuesday, November 10.
For as long as the series has existed, Stephanie has been in her current position, and when she gets in over her head, she calls one of the two men in her life for help. Joe Morelli is a cop; Ranger, whose actual name nobody knows, runs a security firm. And for the first 30 books, she has vacillated between one man and the other romantically. Sometimes that’s great fun, but of late, most reviewers have found it to be monotonous. This reader has read all of those books except for #31, which turns out to be a bad one to have missed, as Stephanie has finally chosen between them. This book begins with her married to Joe Morelli, but it isn’t going well. She’s not domestic; the Italian elders in his family have huge expectations that she’s not meeting.
But her work is heating up, and she’s tasked with bringing in a couple of guys that are seriously scary. They’re both worth solid amounts of money if she can carry it off, and she needs money, and so this book is primarily about her pursuit of Ziggy Zucker and Greb Tuti, as well as her extra job moonlighting for Ranger as a bodyguard for the child of a wealthy customer. The kiddo gets kidnapped, and so now she’s scrambling to rescue Mia as well.
This book cheers me in that it retains the series’ humor while also breaking the log jam, at least to an extent. I won’t spoil it for you by being specific, but Stephanie does something more serious than she’s previously done in her work, and it clicks perfectly. I love this series, and as long as Evanovich writes it, I’ll read it. If you haven’t read the others, you can hop in here without becoming confused, but it will make you want to round up the rest right away! Highly recommended.
