High Five & Hot Six
Janet Evanovich
317 & 336 pages

First sentence - High Five: When I was a little girl, I used to dress Barbie up without underpants.
First sentence - Hot Six: OK, so here's the thing.

Reflections: It took me just a few days to zip through these two volumes in the Stephanie Plum mystery series, so I decided to combine them into one review. In High Five, Stephanie's Uncle Fred disappears under mysterious circumstances, and with bounty hunting business a bit slow, Stephanie accepts a request to track down Fred. Hot Six, opens with a murder and fellow bounty hunter Ranger is the prime suspect. Both books move along at a fast clip and include all that we've come to love from this series:

• Colorful, funny main characters like Lula and Grandma Mazur
• Strange and sometimes evil people breaking into Stephanie's apartment
• Cars that are stolen, catch fire, or explode
• The possiblity of romance with either vice cop Joe Morelli, or Ranger

The romantic subplot really accelerates in these two books. High Five ends on a cliffhanger with one of the two men visiting Stephanie for a romantic liaison, but the man's identity is not revealed. Hot Six begins with a prologue in which we find out who it was (no spoilers here!). Clearly both Joe and Ranger have a "thing" for Stephanie, and she has a "thing" for them, too. I suppose readers are equally divided on their favorite.

I enjoy this series as a diversion from more serious literature. This was perfect fare for a hot summer weekend. 

35 / 50 (70.0%)

13,905 / 15,000 (92.7%)

I haven't joined a new challenge in a while, and I think I have just a tiny bit of room in my summer reading plans to take on Amanda's Summer Reading Challenge, especially since she has made the rules so easy.  I'm going to use this challenge for light, fun, fill-in reads, just perfect for those lazy hazy days of summer.  And at the same time, I'll be making progress towards completing Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series.  Anyone who hasn't read these, should!    Stephanie is a hapless bounty hunter, and the mysteries she solves are loaded with hilariously funny characters and situations.  I've read the first three books and would love to get through the next three for this challenge.  So, without further ado ... let the challenge begin!

Challenge Completed 7/15/2007 (links to reviews below)
1.  Four to Score
2.  High Five
3.  Hot Six

Four to Score
Janet Evanovich
313 pages

First sentence: Living in Trenton in July is like living inside a big pizza oven.

Reflections:  Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is back in this fourth installment of the gritty yet humourous crime mystery series.  In this book, Stephanie is pursuing Maxine Nowicki, a young woman with little previous criminal history.  It should be an easy apprehension, but of course things are not what they seem.  Stephanie is supported by some of the characters we've come to know in previous books:  Lula, the former prostitute who is now employed doing office work at the Vincent Plum Bail Bonds Agency; Stephanie's hilariously eccentric Grandma Mazur; seasoned bounty hunter Ranger, and the irresistible vice officer, Joe Morelli.  

As Stephanie hunts for Maxine, she also meets up with Sally, a drag queen who has a unique ability to crack codes Maxine leaves behind for her boyfriend.  Several acts of violence are committed, with similar characteristics, and it turns out that Stephanie's case is related to Joe Morelli's current investigation.  The two begin working together and, at last, the tension between Joe & Stephanie, which has been building in the first three books, is released.  Yea!

Of course all's well in the end, the mystery is solved and the bad guys are taken care of one way or another.  I didn't find this book quite as good as some of the previous ones, but still a fun, light, summer read.

29 / 50 (58.0%)

10,711 / 15,000 (71.4%)