To the Nines - Brief Article - Audiobook Review

Kliatt, March, 2004 by Janet Julian

Janet Evanovich, 2003. Read by Lorelei King. 7 cds, 8.5 hrs. Audio Renaissance. 1-55927-777-7. $37.95. Cardboard, plastic; content notes. A

Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is sent to find a missing computer geek named Samuel Singh, an illegal immigrant gone five days. Complications arise. A witness is shot and Stephanie receives veiled threats that say, "How does it feel to be the hunted?" Steph is not defenseless: she is aided by co-worker Lula and a bounty hunter named Ranger. The killer, who seems to be caught in some insane computer game, murders two more people. Steph's guardian angel, a tough cop named Morelli, vies with Ranger for her affections. Her sister is pregnant but unmarried and the rest of her New Jersey family is nuts.

As usual, Evanovich weaves humor, sex, violence, and crazy relatives into an entertaining suspense novel. Highly recommended to the author's many fans, who will be pleased with King's full-voiced reading. She gets the accents right and creates memorable characterizations of everyone from the Elvis impersonators in Vegas to Lula, whose diets are a hoot. While the trip to Vegas could have been dropped with no harm to the plot, all else is nonstop action. Obscenities and sexual situations. Janet Julian, Grafton, MA