Fearless Fourteen (Stephanie Plum, No. 14) [Abridged] [Audio CD]

Janet Evanovich (Author), Lorelei King (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 17, 2008

Personal vendettas, hidden treasure, and a monkey named Carl will send bounty hunter Stephanie Plum on her most explosive adventure yet.

The Crime:  Armed robbery to the tune of nine million dollars

Dom Rizzi robbed a bank, stashed the money, and did the time. His family couldn’t be more proud. He always was the smart one. 

The Cousin:  Joe Morelli

Joe Morelli, Dom Rizzi, and Dom’s sister, Loretta, are cousins. Morelli is a cop, Rizzi robs banks, and Loretta is a single mother waiting tables at the firehouse. The all-American family.

The Complications:  Murder, kidnapping, destruction of personal property, and acid reflux

Less than a week after Dom’s release from prison, Joe Morelli has shadowy figures breaking into his house and dying in his basement. He’s getting threatening messages, Loretta is kidnapped, and Dom is missing.

The Catastrophe:  Moonman

Morelli hires Walter “Mooner” Dunphy, stoner and “inventor” turned crime fighter, to protect his house. Morelli can’t afford a lot on a cop’s salary, and Mooner will work for potatoes.

The Cupcake:  Stephanie Plum

Stephanie and Morelli have a long-standing relationship that involves sex, affection, and driving each other nuts. She’s a bond enforcement agent with more luck than talent, and she’s involved in this bank-robbery-gone-bad disaster from day one.

The Crisis:  A favor for Ranger

Security expert Carlos Manoso, street name Ranger, has a job for Stephanie that will involve night work. Morelli has his own ideas regarding Stephanie’s evening activities.

The Conclusion:  Only the fearless should listen to Fourteen.

Thrills, chills, and incontinence may result.

 

 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Lorelei King returns to Trenton, N.J., to continue the misadventures of Stephanie Plum, intermittently successful bounty hunter. King is one of many to voice Janet Evanovich's successful series, but her voice can be heard above the crowd, especially when she's bringing the more colorful characters to life. Her former prostitute Lula can tear down walls with the force of her personality, and King gives professional security specialist (read mercenary) Ranger the measured tones of one who is always in control. Stephanie spends much of the book blue from a briefcase dye bomb. King's Plum accepts her blueness and responds to the reactions with indignity, ruefulness and eventually resignation. In addition to established favorites, Evanovich has thrown into the mix a 60-ish singer trying to hang onto fame who gives King plenty of scope for her Southern side. Fearless Fourteen becomes peerless fourteen with narrator King at the helm. A St. Martin's hardcover (Reviews, May 19). (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

From Booklist

Our heroine, the irrepressible bounty hunter Stephanie Plum, finds herself watching over a goth teen called Zook, who is heavily into gaming, after his mom can’t make bail and disappears (or has been kidnapped). A lot of people think there is stolen money buried in or near Officer Morelli’s little house—that’s Steph’s Morelli, the cop who is her number-one boyfriend most of the time, or at least when the entrancing Ranger isn’t nearby. The money is the reason behind Zook’s mom’s disappearance, and it’s the tie that binds Evanovich’s various plotlines, which carom about endlessly, not always resolving. Questions abound: Are Steph’s sidekick, the plus-size Lula, and Ranger’s man Tank really engaged? Ranger is working security for a fading but brassy pop star: How does Steph manage to get into and out of her reality show? Can Zook and his sidekicks protect Morelli’s house—and Stephanie—with their homegrown weaponry (think potatoes as missiles)? Where else but Evanovich’s fourteenth novel can a line like “it’s raining money and popsicles!” actually make sense? Fans will be delighted, but others, who stumble into the series at this advanced point, may find themselves starved for backstory, so much so that they may need to go all the way back to One for the Money (1994). --GraceAnne A. DeCandido --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: MacMillan Audio (June 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1427204195
• ISBN-13: 978-1427204196
• Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (548 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,267,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #55 in Books > Books on CD > Authors, A-Z > ( E ) > Evanovich, Janet

More About the Author

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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

442 of 517 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Sláinte agus Saol Agat!, June 18, 2008

By 

Cherise Everhard (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fearless Fourteen (Hardcover)

I'm not going to give a book synopsis. What I am going to do is say goodbye to one of my all time favorite series. The last couple of books have been horribly silly and ridiculous; this one was no exception.

The characters I once loved and looked forward all year to hearing from are barely visible. The little quirks that used to make them unique and funny are now taking over their entire persona making them slightly moronic. The dialogue that used to be naturally witty seems forced and contrived. Jokes, gags and antics that once made me laugh have been recycled and reused so much, it's sad.

No one in this series is growing or getting anywhere, they are all just going in circles. I want Stephanie to get better at the bounty hunter thing; I want her to grow up. I don't want her or Ranger or Joe to change, but after so many years you expect SOMETHING of substance to happen.

I barely got through this book. Janet has provided hours of entertainment for me in the past with this series and for that I will always be grateful. But I can't for the life of me see myself shelling out the big bucks for these hardcover books filled with drivel anymore.

I hope that Janet rethinks what she has been doing with this series lately and gives it a much needed overhaul. The last couple of books have seemed rushed and phoned in, a huge departure from the earlier books in the series.

My days of rushing to the bookstore on release dates are over. When book 15 comes out I will wait to read reviews, first. If the reviews make the book look promising, maybe I will read it. But from where I sit now, I don't see me opening another `new' Plum adventure. I will reread the older and much better books in the series if I need a Plum fix.

Cherise Everhard, June 2008

155 of 193 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Can I get my money back?, June 17, 2008

By 

Happiness is reading (Yardley, Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fearless Fourteen (Hardcover)

After plunking down some hard earned cash on this year's installment of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, I raced home to read.

What the? Is there a book return policy? What a waste.

If you love Plum for the edgy writing, great wit, fantastic plot, and wonderful characters, forget Fearless Fourteen. Plum has always been more than just a breezy, silly, summer read for me.

I am invested in the lives of these characters. What I got this year is slapstick, unresolved sub plots, villains with no names, subject matter bordering on the distasteful, recycled plots and my favorite characters very out of character. I even recognized things said by one character in past books, now being uttered by a different character in this book. Bizzare.

No sense rehashing the pitiful storyline. What storyline? This book reads like a major hit on all those that I have grown to love. Morelli's character takes a nosedive as a belching, inept detective with a dead body in his basement and he`s more concerned about the concrete floor or playing softball with his cronies. Stephanie is no longer the gutsy, edgy woman that she was in past books but rather either now babysitting some teenager or flouncing around Trenton in some idiotic reality Bounty Hunter fiasco. Grandma Mazur, dressed in Goth - a master gamer? Lula reduced to sneaky tricks and turning into Bridezilla? Tank fainting and babbling? Mrs. Plum downing a glass of whiskey? And where the heck was Ranger? Reduced to a mere side character?

Speaking of unresolved, and there is a lot unresolved.....like, whose toes were they, anyway?

This book reads like a bad episode of the Three Stooges. The World of Plum in the Twilight Zone. Unrecognizable. A bad dream.

I should have saved my money. Waited to borrow the library copy. Or better yet, not have read it at all.

Sadly, I think it is time to say goodbye to Janet Evanovich and Plum.

Gee, I wish I could get my money back on this one. Are you sure there isn't a better return policy on a really bad book?

95 of 118 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not her best..., June 18, 2008

By 

Cynthia K. Robertson (beverly, new jersey USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fearless Fourteen (Hardcover)

Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich is the latest in her Stephanie Plum series. I thought much of it was amusing and there was at least one good belly-laugh (where I had tears rolling down my cheeks). But overall, I think Fearless Fourteen is a bit of a stretch--even for Stephanie Plum.

Plum is a bounty hunter from Trenton, NJ and as usual, her life is utter chaos. She ends up babysitting the teenaged son of a skip, Zook. Zook is addicted to an interactive Internet game called Minionfire. He also likes to spray paint everything. Ranger (a fellow bounty hunter and owner of a security firm) hires Stephanie to help babysit an aging singer, Brenda, who acts like a diva and is inclined to get into trouble. Plum also finds herself in the middle of a 10-year-old $9 million unsolved bank robbery, and it appears that the money might be somewhere in boyfriend Joe Morelli's house. Brenda decides to start a reality show and follows Plum around as she's trying to do her job. And when things couldn't get any worse, Lula is engaged to boyfriend, Tank, and is driving Plum crazy with wedding plans. All of these situations play out with the usual Evanovich zaniness. Unfortunately, I think there was just way too much going on here--especially toward the end.

Evanovich is skillful at describing life in Trenton. Of a fast-food restaurant, she writes "Cluck-in-a-Bucket is a zoo on Sunday. It's the lunch of choice for the lazy, the fat, the salt-starved, the emotionally injured, the families on budgets, the cholesterol-deprived and the remaining ten percent of the population who just want a piece of chicken." My favorite character (next to Plum) is Lula, "former `ho, turned bonds office file clerk and wheelman. She's a plus-size black woman who likes to squash herself into too small clothes featuring animal print and spandex. Lula's cup runneth over from head to toe." I'm glad that Evanovich has turned Lula into a regular.

Although I don't think this is Evanovich's best Plum book, I still enjoyed reading the exploits of Stephanie. When I need a break from serious female detectives and private investigators including Kinsey Millhone, Sharon McCone, Nevada Barr, Kathy Mallory and Temperance Brennan, reading about Stephanie and Lula is like watching "Lucy and Ethel" on television.