Three to Get Deadly (Stephanie Plum #3) by Janet Evanovich

Synopsis

“Stephanie is having a bad hair day – for the whole month of January. She’s looking for Mo Bedemier, Trenton’s most beloved citizen, who was charged with carrying concealed and skipping bail. To help her, she’s got Lula, a former hooker turned file clerk. Big, blonde, and black, Lula’s itching to lock up a crook in the trunk of her car. And Morelli, the cop with the slow-burning smile, is acting polite even after Stephanie finds more bodies than the Trenton PD has seen in years. That’s a bad sign for sure.”

-Synopsis from back cover

Review

The above image is the cover of Three to Get Deadly, the below image is the cover of the one that I read from my library…

I loved the concept of this story. A beloved resident of Stephanie’s hometown is missing and even though he is wanted for valid reasons, no one believes he could have committed a crime. As a result, no one is helpful to Stephanie as she tries to track him down. In fact, they are downright rude when all she is doing is her job. The missing person, Mo, is like everyone’s favorite uncle but Stephanie is wary of trusting a person based on their reputation alone and is committing to tracking him down.

As with the first two books, I was laughing out loud multiple times while reading. The characters in this story have such strong personalities and they truly leap off the page. Grandma Mazur has some shining moments, as does Lula who has quickly become Stephanie’s sidekick. They both say the darnedest things and sometimes even Stephanie is speechless by what comes out of their mouths. Joe and Ranger again bring a love triangle to Stephanie’s life, although Joe is acting distant in this one and doesn’t play as big of a role as he did in previous stories.

What is most comical is the fact that a book with a mystery as dark as this (and it is pretty dark and disturbing, for the record) can even still manage to make the reader laugh. I am in awe by the way Janet Evanovich manages to balance humor and crime solving. It is truly and art and she is the greatest!

I look forward to continuing this series, which has over a dozen more titles that will definitely keep me busy.