★★★★☆ The series starts well, but eventually becomes a drag

One for the Money

Janet Evanovich

I began reading Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books in 2000. I remember exactly how I happened on them. One day while boarding a plane the person behind me in the aisle said to someone in the seat she was passing, "Oh, I love those! I've only read the first two, though!" The person she was addressing responded enthusiastically. I craned my neck around to spy what she was reading, and saw one of the the Stephanie Plum books in her lap. I fixed the name Janet Evanovich in my memory (which was better 26 years ago than it is now) and later got hold of the first book.

I did not regret my small act of espionage. Stephanie quickly captured my affections. I remember the exact moment I fell in love with her

I shoved my key into the ignition and tried hard not to panic over the fact that I had tear gas under 125 pounds of pressure per square inch, which in my mind spelled nerve bomb, dangling between my knees. The engine caught and the oil light came on again, looking very red and a little frantic. Fuck it. Take a number, I thought. On my list of problems to solve, oil wasn’t even in the top ten.

At the time my own life was hectic, though less desperately so than Stephanie's, and the thought of yelling "Take a number!" at a slightly frantic-looking oil pressure light touched a chord.

I went on to read the first four books. This, I suspect, is how many books Evanovich planned when she began the series, based on the titles, which are obviously based on the old rhyme

One for the money,
Two for the show,
Three to get ready,
Four to go!

By the end of Four to Score, however, I found that my interest was waning. Stephanie was no longer the stand-out funny life-improvisor I had fallen in love with, but was becoming more ordinary.

I learn that we're now up to Dirty Thirty. That's too many. It is a rare series that can be extended beyond three novels without artistic decay. Even Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan saga extends only to 16 novels (I don't count the stories and novellas that accrete to any good and long series).

I should say, "I THINK 30 is too many." Since I haven't read beyond #4, it is possible that Stephanie achieves a second burst of artistic wonderfulness in the later books, of which I am unaware. And if so, I will remain unaware.

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