Editorial Content for Turbo Twenty-Three: A Stephanie Plum Novel

Janet Evanovich has over 20 Stephanie Plum novels to her credit, and TURBO TWENTY-THREE is sure to please her fans once again.

Stephanie’s charisma stems from her traditional family background coupled with her modernist viewpoint. A bounty hunter working with an edgy former street lady, Lula, Stephanie slips into one predicament after another. She relies on the equipment of her trade: a stun gun, handcuffs but no gun, and a messenger bag on her shoulder at all times while on the job. Lula, conversely, depends on her gun, along with brute force (due to her size). Stephanie’s working outfit (jeans and a t-shirt), ponytail and messenger bag trademark her. Lula brings bling to the extreme, with stiletto heels, fake jewels, extravagant purses and her Firebird. The opposites make for an unlikely but effective team.

"Evanovich’s secondary characters --- Lula, Morelli, Ranger and Stephanie’s grandma --- are as endearing to the reader as Stephanie herself."

Evanovich tells Stephanie’s story in first-person narrative. Her reality differs from the traditional when it comes to romance. She is semi-engaged to Joe Morelli, Trenton’s top cop, but is swept off her feet emotionally by Ranger, an ex-Special Forces operative who now runs a security company. Stephanie and Ranger cooperate on cases where covert activity can work on the outside edge of the law for good results. He’s “hot” and she’s enamored, but remains loyal to Morelli --- part of the time.

Stephanie’s assignment is to bring in Larry Virgil for missing a court date after hijacking a truck full of bourbon. She and Lula sit on a stakeout of his three-bay garage when an 18-wheeler barrels into the lot, stopping at the gate. Virgil steps down from the driver’s seat to unlock the gate. Lula spots him, shouting, “It’s him… Hold on while I get my gun.” She bolts from the Firebird, racing across the street in her stilettos, waving the firearm and yelling “Bond enforcement!” at the top of her lungs. Meanwhile, Stephanie, who is against gunplay, shouts “No shooting!” but leaves the car to join the chase.

Virgil takes off, stopping at the Firebird, jumps in and barrels off. Beyond exasperation, Lula jumps into the 18-wheeler, yells Stephanie into the passenger side and commandeers the truck. Brushing aside a trash dumpster, Lula’s joyride to recover the Firebird comes to a halt when she’s pulled over for running a stoplight. Virgil gets away, but Lula vows to get her car back before it’s hacked up at a chop-shop.

Evanovich’s bizarre plot unfolds on the page when the police and Ranger, who arrive to help Stephanie, break the lock on the Bogart ice-cream freezer truck and open the back gate. A frozen body, covered in chocolate and nuts, falls to the ground. A human resources employee is identified as the dead chocolate-covered human Bogart bar. Ranger’s company is hired to install a fool-proof security system at Bogart, and Stephanie goes undercover as a line employee to find a disgruntled jobber who may be the murderer. Thrown together with Ranger, her Catholic upbringing and moral fiber are challenged. Still, she balances two lovers on a careful tightrope.

Stephanie’s affinity for dangerous situations and compromising predicaments lands her in trouble much of the time, but she is saved from each and every catastrophe by her good friends. Evanovich’s secondary characters --- Lula, Morelli, Ranger and Stephanie’s grandma --- are as endearing to the reader as Stephanie herself. #24 in this delightful series cannot come soon enough for me.