TO THE NINES: A STEPHANIE PLUM NOVEL, by Janet Evanovich, St. Martin's Press, 312 pages, $25.95.
Janet Evanovich, whose late-blooming career has brought us eight Stephanie Plum novels in eight years, has just delivered No. 9, appropriately titled, "To the Nines."
This author cranks out a formula-written series that inevitably ends up on best-seller lists. Maybe that's because it's about a "Jersey girl" who has the moxie to succeed in life — by being a bounty hunter.
As in the other novels, "To the Nines" is set in the author's hometown, Trenton, N.J., and the proverbial accent can almost be heard as you read. The characters are all stereotypical Jerseys — starting with Stephanie, an attractive girl who could never quite decide what to do with her life, so she started working for her cousin Vinnie, who posts bail for troubled immigrants.
Samuel Singh, an illegal immigrant, has disappeared and Stephanie is put on the case. In a mad, crazy effort to find him prior to the deportation deadline, Stephanie races from the Jersey Turnpike to the Las Vegas Strip and back. But Singh, of course, ends up dead.
Stephanie, who has no taste in men, has two boyfriends — Joe Morelli, a smooth and muscular cop, and Ranger, Vinnie's frightening leading gunman. Both are virtual lowlifes who treat women as pliant sex objects, Stephanie included. She encourages it, often dressing provocatively, and she's good with a sexual come-on and is inclined to be promiscuous. Lame sex jokes run prolifically throughout the entire story, often popping up in the middle of some crisis.
Sometimes good at her job, sometimes not, Stephanie is no feminist. This is a crime story, combined with slapstick humor, so it's necessary that she have several outrageous girlfriends who tag along on most of her activities — the most notable being Lula, a plus-size, black "ex-ho" who still wears tight spandex tops and short skirts and comes on like a hurricane.
Steph also has a secret stalker who sends her frightening e-mail. No wonder Vinnie and Ranger get a variety of bulky, scary-looking bodyguards, such as "Tank," to follow her wherever she goes. There is a great deal of slapstick when these so-called tough guys get hurt on the job and Ranger has to send in replacements.
In the meantime, Steph just muddles through, even when she has to go Las Vegas to make an arrest with two of her bimbo friends along for the ride, and no bodyguard.
All of Steph's family members are caricatures — sometimes amusing, usually not. Joe's Grandma Bella is probably the most interesting. She continually has visions that she regularly announces pontifically, usually concerning the way in which Steph is going to die. Steph doesn't die, but a lot of other people do.
The climactic scenes are actually pretty chilling.
Some people think Evanovich's writing is laugh-out-loud funny. Not me.
Her style is uniformly sleazy, the jokes are almost never funny, and the plot is too thin to sustain interest. I did get a kick out of Steph's addiction to chocolate cake. But I especially dislike the portrayal of women as cute, sexual push-overs and the men as tough, insensitive creeps.
Who is there to like in this story? The reader has to identify with someone.
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com