Four to score

Four to score by Janet Evanovich
Published by St. Martins press
Grade: A

Working for her bailbondsman cousin, Vinnie, Stephanie is hot on the trail of
revenge-seeking waitress Maxine Nowicki, whose crimes include bail jumping,
theft, and extortion. Someone is terrifying Maxine's friends, and those who have
seen her are turning up dead. Also on the hunt for Maxine is Joyce Barnhardt,
Stephanie's archenemy and rival bounty hunter. Stephanie's attitude never wavers
- even when aided by Grandma Mazur, ex-hooker and wannabe bounty hunter Lula,
and transvestite rock musician Sally Sweet - and even when Stephanie makes an
enemy whose deadly tactics escalate from threatening messages to firebombs. All
of this pales in comparison, though, with an even greater danger Stephanie
faces, when, homeless and broke, she and her hamster Rex move in with vice cop
Joe Morelli.

Another very entertaining Stephanie Plum novel. This time Stephanie is looking for Maxine, a waitress who has jumped bail. Along with Lula, Grandma Mazur and now their new friend, Sally Sweet, they go through the motions of trying to find Maxine. Meanwhile, cars & apartments are being blown up. Someone is accusing Stephanie of being a boyfriend stealer, and Stephanie has competition from her most hated enemy.

I decided to jot down some of the funnier moments. By the end of the book I had so many parts marked off that there is no way I can include them all. Here is just a sample of the laughs.

Stephanie comes home and runs into a elderly neighbor who is complaining about the heat.

Mr. Landowsky was eighty-two and somehow his chest had shrunk over the years,
and now he was forced to hike his pants up under his armpits.
"Oi," he said.
"This heat! I can't breath. Somebody should do something."
I assumed he was talking about God.
"That weatherman on the morning news. He should be shot. How can I go out in weather like this? And then when it gets so hot they keep the supermarkets too cold. Hot, cold. Hot, cold. It gives me the runs."
I was glad I owned a gun, because when I got as old as Mr. Landowsky I was going
to eat a bullet. The first time I got the runs in the supermarket, that was it.
BANG! It would all be over.

Next, the boyfriend of the skip got invited to dinner at Stephanie's parents house by Grandma Mazure. Steph tells her mom how creepy the guy is, then....

My mother had been slicing up the chicken. She took a drumstick and dropped it
on the floor. She kicked it around a little, picked up and put it on the edge of
the plate. "There," she said, "we'll give him this drumstick."

This next scene is with my favourite gal, Lula. See, Joyce has been following Stephanie and after Steph tell Lula about it Lula decides to fix the problem.

"I can't work like this, " I said. "She's in my way. She's following me around"
"I can fix that," Lula said. "Where is she? I'll go talk to her."
"She's in the black Cherokee, but I don't think thats a good idea."
"Don't worry about nothing, " Lula said, swinging through the door. "I'll be real diplomatic. You wait here."
Lula, diplomatic?
"Lula, "I yelled. "Come back here. I'll take care of Joyce Barnhardt."
Lula reached the car and was standing by the curbside rear quarter panel. "This the one?" she called to me.
"Yes but..."
Lula pulled a gun out from under her T-shirt and-BANG! She blew a cantaloupe-sized hole in Joyce's back tire. She had the gun back under her shirt by the time Joyce got out of her car. Joyce saw the tire and her mouth dropped open.
"Did you see that?" Lula asked Joyce. "A guy came up here and
shot up your tire. And then fast as anything, he ran away. I don't know what
this world is coming to."

In this next quote, Lula and Steph are talking to the guy who ate the dirty chicken from the kitchen floor.

Lula was standing behind me on Kuntz's porch. "Probably just another dumb-assed
note taped to the bottom of that bench. Think you should stop your whinning,"
she said to Kuntz, "on account of it makes you look like a wiener. And with a
name like Kuntz you gotta be careful what you look like."

This next scene isn't what I would call funny, but I include it because I love Ranger. I'd be happy to see Steph and Ranger hook up. I'd be happy to see a Stephanie sandwich with Joe on top and Ranger on the bottom.

"She'll be back," Ranger said. "But not tonight."
"how'd you get her to leave?"
"told her I was gonna spend the next twelve hours ruining you for other men, an so she might as well go home."
I could feel the heat rush to my face.
Ranger gave me the wolf smile. "I lied about it being tonight," he
said.

In this book Stephanie gets help from Sally Sweet, a drag queen musician. Grandma is meeting him for the first time here.

Sally tugged at his dress. "I'm disguised as Sheba."
"Girlfriend, " Lula said to him, "You are the shit."
"Sally's a drag queen," I explained to Grandma.
"No kidding," Grandma said. "I always wanted to meet a drag queen. I
always wanted to know what you do with your dingdong when you wear girl's
clothes."
"You're supposed to wear special underpants that tuck you under."
We all looked down at the crotch-level bulge in the front of Sally's dress.
"So sue me," Sally said. "They give me a rash."

Any sort of dialogue with Grandma Mazur and Lula is going to be good.

"I always wanted to eat with a negro," Grandma said.
"Yeah, well, I always wanted to eat with a boney-assed old white woman," Lula said. "So I guess this works out good."
Grandma and Lula did some complicated handshake thing.
"Bitchin'" said Grandma.

Those are just some of the hilarious moments that had me peeing my pants.
The best thing is that Joe and Stephanie finally 'do it'.
I wish there was a bit more of Ranger though. I really like him.

My reviews of
One for the money
Two for the dough
Three to get deadly