Title: Three to Get Deadly
Author: Janet Evanovich
After finishing the third book in the series, I can say that it is the funniest of the series so far. Not really funny, but with funny moments.
I didn’t figure out the way the mystery would end in this, although I had suspected Uncle Mo was into child pornography rather than what he was doing *Spoiler Alert* which was making pornographic movies with consenting adults. So, I wasn’t far off.
Granted, this was only a portion of what was going on, and I was unable to figure out the actual killer.
After doing a more thorough analysis of the story and my own detective skills, I am not sure I could have figured it out. There were no clues to tie it together until the very end. Not that it really matters. At least, not to me.
If you liked the first two stories in this series, you will probably like the third. It is very similar in pacing and style. Being outside my normal reading fare, I can’t say how much of it is realistic and how much is just a fun read. Add to it that the story takes place 20 years ago, and I am really outside my comfort zone. The one thing that did strike me is why does Stephanie Plum stay a bounty hunter? She notes in book 3 that she has a college education. So why would her choice for careers involve working at the button factory or working at the tampon factory?
I took a look at map, and Trenton is right off the freeway and a pretty straight shot to NYC. If there is no work in Trenton, why not make the leap up to NYC for work?
Maybe I am just a coward, but if I had been accosted, threatened, and tortured like Stephanie has been, where my apartment isn’t safe and I’ve had cars destroyed by professional car bombs and rocket launchers, and where my grandmother was stabbed with an ice pick and later shoved in drawer reserved for the dead, I would not stick with the job. Especially as I am not adept at it. Especially as all of this has happened within the first 6 or so months on the job.
I’d be happy to loan Stephanie Plum the book What Color is Your Parachute (and I know it was around back then) to help her figure out what skills she has and how they could apply to a job where people aren’t trying to kill her.
I get that this is part of the charm of the story. If she was good at her job, it wouldn’t be funny. But I am starting to cringe at certain parts of her incompetence and at the way she is so blasé about danger.
The humor does add something to the story, and I love the feisty dialogue and the off-the-wall characters that have just enough of someone I know in them to make them real.
