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.