One for the Money - Janet Evanovich

Ok, imagine an unemployed lingerie buyer, car repossessed, furniture and most appliances sold to pay the bills, and an empty refrigerator. This is Stephanie Plum at the beginning of the book. Her family tells her that cousin Vinnie needs a file clerk and she swallows her pride and applies - only to find the job has already been filled. But one of his bounty hunters is in the hospital and Stephanie blackmails her way into a week to prove herself in the job. First bad guy, a cop named Joe Morelli who has been charged with murder, who also just happens to be the charmer who took her virginity years ago. Stephanie doesn't really feel comfortable in the job, but the dream of the $10,000 payoff deludes her into thinking she can bring in the bad guys.

One for the Money is fast-paced and hard to put down. Stephanie Plum is cocky and stubborn. She has no bounty hunter skills and doesn't know how to use her equipment. She tends to act first and think later. She spends her time dodging bad guys and bill collectors and yet somehow bumbles her way to some successes - but not with Joe Morelli. She catches up with him several times, but he tosses her keys in a smelly dumpster, kisses her senseless, and just generally has to keep coming to her rescue. The chemistry is palpable.

Stephanie is a real character. She dresses in classic 1980's wardrobe, drinks beer for breakfast, lives with a hampster, and has forced family dinners with her parents. Yet, even with all her cliches, you still really want her to suceed. You want her car to get fixed, you want her to learn to shoot, and you want her to catch the bad guys.

With that said, the book has it's flaws. The characters are a little too stereotypical -- the psycho bad guy, the overbearing mother, the sassy heroine, the rogue love interest, and the crazy grandmother. (Although, in all honesty, the grandmother provides the serious laugh out loud moment of the book when she plays with Stephanie's new gun and shoots the roast chicken in the butt at a family dinner.) Even the New Jersey setting is a stereotype of what we have all heard New Jersey to be. Additionally, there is some violence and some racial stereotypes.

The book is not mentally stimulating - but it is light, funny, interesting, and easy to absorbe. It's not a great thriller, and the gloating criminal confessing to the heroine while he holds a gun to her at the end of the book is really trite and unimaginative. While some of the characters are stereotypes, a few characters are a joy - like Ranger (a bounty hunter who is training her) and her grandmother. Joe and Stephanie have a wonderful chemistry that I'm sure will only get better with future books in the series.

All in all, I enjoyed the book and will read more in the series - if for no other reason, than to have another laugh out loud session.

The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King

This book was wonderful. I love it when I "like" the characters by the end of the first chapter. It makes continuing easy.

Imagine if Sherlock Holmes had retired to the country to work on his experiments, his writing, and take up beekeeping. This is where the story begins.

The book takes place during the time during and immediately post World War I. England is at war and women begin to take on a strong role in keeping the country alive while the men are fighting. Modern ideas are pushing away the remnants of Victorian England.

Through a twist in writing style - our book begins as someone describing how a trunk was delivered . . . a trunk that held many unusual objects and a memoir written by our main character and narrator, Mary Russell.

Mary is a precocious 15-year old who moves into the family farm next door with her aunt after her family is killed in an accident. Mary isn't just any teenager, she's brilliant, and so makes a perfect companion for Holmes. She rebels strongly against her bitter guardian and spends hours on end conversing with and learning from Sherlock Holmes. Mary is an early feminist and Holmes teaches her everything he can before she leaves for college in Oxford. It's sad that most of her teen years are skipped over with broad statements - I would have liked to have seen more of the young Mary. We fall in love with the gangly teenager and suddenly she's a woman who gives Holmes "apoplexy" when he first sees her again after her tranformation. The bulk of the book is set at a time when Mary is of college age.

The two soon have cases to solve - Mary isn't the "sidekick" of Holmes, like Dr. Watson had been - she's his partner and over the course of the book we see that she is becoming his equal in crime detection and his true friend in life. In many ways, she becomes the female Sherlock Holmes. In their crime detection, we follow them through a variety of disguises - from gypsies to transgendered dress.

Their first big case is the kidnapping of an American Senator's young daughter, which soon becomes apparent had a criminal mastermind behind it - the likes of which Holmes hasn't seen since Professor Moriarty. This foe escapes this time, but reappears later and seems to have studied Holmes thoroughly and is now out for Sherlock and everyone he cares about.

The book is not an Arthur Conan Doyle rip-off - though is definitely written in a similar style. If you have read any Sherlock Holmes stories, you will definitely feel like this picks up where they left off. But unlike the earlier stories, this Holmes has aged into a more subtle and infinitely more likeable, imperfect person. One of the reasons we like him is because he has such admiration and affection for his young colleague (our leading lady.) I know that in Doyle's Holmes, ego might not have allowed him to so easily brought on a young, female apprentice, but King's aging Holmes does it believably.

As with most first books to a collection, this one has some slight flaws, but overall is a great mystery. I can't wait to continue on to the rest of the series.