Stephanie Plum used to deal in lingerie but she’s been out of work for 6 months now and the job prospects aren’t looking any brighter for the former employee of a disgraced company. When she finds herself filching nuggets from her hamster and losing her car to the repo man in the same week, she decides she’s desperate enough to hit up her cousin Vinnie for work. Vinnie runs a bail bonds office in Trenton. Steph originally plans to hit Vinnie up for a filing position but quickly sets her sights on becoming a bounty hunter after learning that the paycheck is worth 10% of the bond. The fact that one of the skips she’ll go after is Joe Morelli, the guy who seduced her in high school and then never called, is only icing on the cupcake.
I first read this book years ago and I just now re-read it because of the movie. One for the Money is superb–I’d forgotten just how good the series was when Evanovich first started writing it. Stephanie is spunky in this first outing—she’s determined to do what’s needed to be a successful bonds recovery agent. She runs, she goes to the shooting gallery, she pressures herself to learn from her mistakes. Even though she’s a newbie, she’s smart and she’s observant and you can see her potential. This Stephanie would not accept being an entertainment line item in Rangeman’s budget.
Not only is Stephanie spunkier, but also the mystery is quite good. Over the last few years I’ve been telling people that the mystery is light and it’s the characters that make the story. In One for the Money, Evanovich gives us a solid mystery AND entertaining characters. Damn, Janet, I didn’t realize that you’d coaxed me into settling for so much less than you’re capable of.
What about the movie? I liked it. Practically every “big” reviewer out there has hated it but these are the people who convinced me to watch things like Four Weddings and a Funeral which left me wishing for 117 minutes of my life back: it just goes to prove the adage “to each his own”. I’ve always been a Morelli-girl and I’m even more so after seeing Jason O’Mara in that role. Hot, hot, HOT. I also loved Daniel Sunjata as Ranger. At the end of the movie, my friend and I were sitting there chatting about it and a few seats over, another woman joined the conversation. When the conversation turned to which guy we would choose, she didn’t miss a beat: “Ranger—I’m all about the bad boys!”. Who’s your pick?
