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Zusatztext Praise for Janet Evanovich “No less than her plotting! Evanovich’s characterizations are models of screwball artistry. . . . The intricate plot machinery of her comic capers is fueled by inventive twists.”— The New York Times “Chutzpah and sheer comic inventiveness . . . The Evanovich/Plum books [are] good fun.” —The Washington Post Informationen zum Autor Janet Evanovich is the #1 bestselling author of the Stephanie Plum novels, twelve romance novels, the Alexandra Barnaby novels and graphic novels, Wicked Appetite (the first book in the Lizzy and Diesel series), and How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author . Klappentext Where there's smoke there's fire, and no one knows this better than New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum. Dead bodies are showing up in shallow graves on the empty construction lot of Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. No one is sure who the killer is, or why the victims have been offed, but what is clear is that Stephanie's name is on the killer's list. Short on time to find the murderer, Stephanie is also under pressure from family and friends to choose between her on-again-off-again boyfriend, Trenton cop Joe Morelli, and the bad boy in her life, security expert Ranger. Stephanie's mom wants her to dump them both for a former high school football star who's just returned to town. Stephanie's sidekick, Lula, suggests a red-hot boudoir "bake-off." And Joe's old-world grandmother gives Stephanie "the eye," which may mean that it's time to get out of town.With a cold-blooded killer after her, a handful of hot men, and a capture list that includes a dancing bear and a senior citizen vampire, Stephanie's life looks like it's about to go up in smoke. ONE My Grandma Mazur called me early this morning. "I had a dream," Grandma said. "There was this big horse, and it could fly. It didn't have wings. It just could fly. And the horse flew over top of you, and started dropping road apples, and you were running around trying to get out of the way of the road apples. And the funny thing was you didn't have any clothes on except a red lace thong kind of underpants. Anyways, next thing a rhinoceros flew over you, and he was sort of hovering over top your head. And then I woke up. I got a feeling it means something." "What?" I asked. "I don't know, but it can't be good." And she disconnected. So that's how my day started. And to tell you the truth the dream pretty much summed up my life. My name is Stephanie Plum. I work as a bond enforcer for my cousin Vinnie's bail bonds office, and I live in an uninspired, low-rent, three-story, brick-faced chunk of an apartment building on the edge of Trenton, New Jersey. My second-floor apartment is furnished with my relatives' cast-offs. I'm average height. I have an okay shape. I'm pretty sure I'm averagely intelligent. And I know for sure I have a crummy job. My shoulder-length curly brown hair is inherited from the Italian side of the family, my blue eyes from the Hungarian side of the family, and I have an excellent nose that's a gift from God. Good thing he gave me the nose before he found out I wasn't the world's best Catholic. It was early September and unseasonably hot. I had my hair up in a ponytail. I'd forgone makeup and opted for lip balm instead. And I was wearing a red stretchy tank top, jeans, and sneakers. Perfect clothes for running down bad guys or buying doughnuts. I parked my hunk-of- junk Ford Escort in front of Tasty Pastry Bakery on Hamilton Avenue and mentally counted out the money in my wallet. Definitely enough for two doughnuts. Not enough for three. I parked the car and went into the bakery where Loretta Kucharski was behind the counter. Last year Loretta was vice president of a bank. When the bank went belly_up, Loretta got the job at Tasty Pastry. To my way of thinking it was definitely...
