95) Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich

Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum has inherited a 'lucky' bottle from her uncle Pip. Nobody seems to know how the bottle works and if it brings good luck or bad luck. So Stephanie figures it wouldn't be a bad idea to carry it around a while and see what happens. After all she could win the lottery.

However the bad luck comes along first. Vinnie, her boss, has run up some gambling debts and is being held captive till the mobster her owns the money to gets paid back. Problem is that nobody really wants to help Vinnie. So Stephanie and her work colleagues, Connie and Luna, are left to raise the money if they want to keep their jobs.

The good luck comes along eventually and just when they need it but Stephanie finds the bottle seems to keep bringing bad luck at the wrong moments as well. At least Stephanie isn't bored and sexy Ranger isn't too. He maybe out of cars but he seems to be having some fun. Luna and Stephanie find themselves running out of bullets and somewhere amongst the chaos there is a hungry crocodile and a band of hobbits. Nothing is normal in Stephanie's life but if she doesn't keep all the bad guys happy she may not have any life.

Sizzling Sixteen is of course the sixteenth book in the Stephanie Plum series. This is a series I haven't been able to resist since I discovered it in a library years ago. Since then I have read all the books in the series twice and also listened to a few of the audiobooks. This is one series I love to recommend to people. Whatever kind of genre you like this is has something for everyone.

Of course by now it is obvious that every book will see Stephanie destroying a car, Luna eating lots of food, Morelli and Ranger tempting our favourite bounty hunter and grandma Mazur getting into some kind of funeral home trouble. However repetitive the storyline is in this series the surprise and mystery of how it will come about is just full of to many laughs to pass up.

Every new book has a new plot and while the basics stay the same it is always a mad-cap roller coaster ride of fun. The sexual tension between Stephanie and her two guys keeps me coming back for more but the real deal breaker is the outrageously wacky characters. You may think you know them but you never really know what to expect from any of them. Luna, Grandma, Mooner and many more just keep me itching for another visit to Trenton.

While I hope there will be more books in the series I also hope that Stephanie will, one day, have a good job and settle down. Maybe Janet Evanovich should think about doing a spin-off series and letting Stephanie do the whole wife and mother thing. But then again it would be nice to see that happen anyway but still have her doing the bounty hunter stuff on the side. Whatever the author has in store for this series, I am there. I just wish that the books would come out more often because they are always over way too soon.