‘Lean Mean Thirteen’ by Janet Evanovich

Published by ISIS Audio Books. ISBN: 978-0-7531-3843-4 (7 Cassettes)

Read by Loreli King

Doing a favour for Ranger (no, not that sort of favour), brings Stephanie into contact with Dickie Orr. For those of you not up to speed on  the life and times of bounty hunter Sptephanie Plum, Dickie Orr and Stephanie were once married for 15 minutes,, then she caught him cheating on her with her sworn enemy Joyce Barnhardt and the marriage was over.  Contact between Stephanie and Dickie is always fraught, and this episode is no exception, well except that applying bodily harm in front of witnesses is not a good move.  Then Dickie disappears and Stephanie is prime suspect.

So the best thing to do is to find him …. not so easy.  Meanwhile Stepahnie needs to eat and  that means bringing in some skips, this involves staking out a graveyard and trying to run to ground a taxidermist who has a neat trick  with his stuffed animals.  Needless to say Grandma Mazure is very much in evidence, and thinks that  being a taxidermist might just be the thing for her.  She also gains a new beau, called Sweetie Pie.

Stephanie’s  investigations into the whereabouts of  Dickie Orr, lead her into many scraps, and she leaves behind her a trail of devastation, my favourite was the escapade that brought forth the comment ‘I was in love with the genius who invested the electric stapler’

In this book Stephanie works quite closely with Ranger but nestles close to  Morelli in a personal sense.  Lula meanwhile is nestling up to Tank, but it’s a loose arrangement you understand.

Loreli King always wonderful, giving all the characters such a distinct voice. Her Morelli and Ranger are brilliant and Grandma Mazure a triumph.  Bring on the next one.

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Lizzie Hayes