Book Talk: Janet Evanovich, 'Dirty Thirty'

As I perused the variety of novels which Amazon.com placed on my monitor, it was like running into an old friend while browsing through the deli section of the local supermarket. In its never-ending quest to sell me more than I really need, Amazon.com selects items based upon my previous purchases. However, it had been a couple of years since I read a Janet Evanovich novel, but Amazon.com's memory is "cloudy," in the most byte-available sense.

I began Evanovich's "Stephanie Plum" series with "One for the Money" and read all the way through to "Nine and Shine Twenty-Nine." Then, she shifted gears and wrote "The Recovery Agent," which I did not like, at all. So, I moved on to other authors, while Evanovich wrote a couple of dozen more novels, most of which were co-authored and none of which featured Stephanie Plum. So, when "Dirty Thirty" (2023, 324 pages in softcover format) showed up on my computer's screen, I ordered it.

As I began reading, I wasn't looking for any surprises, just as one would expect when encountering old friend. And I wasn't disappointed. The book featured Stephanie, Morelli (although he spent most of the novel in Louisiana, testifying at a trial), Ranger, Grandma Mazur, Lula, and a variety of strange, ridiculous, and sometimes scary characters. However, there was one thing that was a bit different from previous stories: Stephanie spends almost the entire novel "babysitting" Bob, Morelli's giant golden retriever with a bottomless stomach that is rivaled only by Lula's.