Metro Girl [Import] [Paperback]

Janet Evanovich (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 374 pages
• Publisher: Harper Collins USA (April 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060820101
• ISBN-13: 978-0060820107
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (265 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,494,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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

63 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad, November 5, 2004

By 

L O'connor (richmond, surrey United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Metro Girl (Alex Barnaby Series #1) (Hardcover)

Alex Barnaby is worried when her brother Bill, who is working in Miami, disappears along with his girlfriend Maria. She finds herself reluctantly joining forces with Hooker, a handsome racing driver, whose boat Bill has stolen. Together they set out to find the missing pair, helped and hindered by a variety of other characters.

This is quite a good story with some amusing moments, but I did not find it nearly as funny or exciting as the Stepahine Plum novels, none of the characters interested me very much, and the heroine, Alex, seemed insipid compared to Stephanie.

If you haven't read any Janet Evanovich books before, my advice would be to skip this one and go for the Plums, they are very much better than this.

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A-Team Meets Scooby Doo, March 4, 2005

By 

Bryan Gilmer "Author, FELONIOUS JAZZ, a thriller" (Durham, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Metro Girl (Alex Barnaby Series #1) (Hardcover)

Scooby elements: A cache of gold bars! A treasure map! A dastardly, swarthy villain who drives around in a limo with henchmen saying things like, "Very well. It's only a matter of time." Young woman who finds her brother's apartment ransacked, but doesn't call the cops -- she and her friends solve the mystery themselves!

Bad '80s TV drama (Riptide, Remington Steele, A-Team) elements: Soviet weapon at large! Outwitting doofy, incompetent G-men! Car crashes! A secret warehouse where the bad guys load stuff into 18-wheelers! Rappelling in through the roof! Scuba-diving for treasure! An exploding helicopter! Thousands of rounds fired, but people are only superficially wounded!

I'll shut up about the two dozen continuity problems and ludicrous plot cheats (well, in a minute): A Nascar driver and a guy named Wild Bill weigh only 360 pounds together, and can be lifted into a car unconscious, handcuffed together by a skinny blonde woman and a willowy gay guy? An elderly woman is such a good shot with a handgun that she can hit one guy in the foot and one guy in the arm because she just wants to wound them? A fishing boat running the Cuban blockade sinks and is missing for decades, then turns up at the bottom of a HARBOR? Almost made it!

And the characters are totally stock: The hot, tomoboyish young blonde woman in the short skirt, the homosexual, Burberry-wearing, exfoliating, interior designer queen (whom the hero just happens to know from childhood 1,600 miles away), the Texas race-car driver, the bumbling federal agents.

This actual quote from the first-person narrator on page 254 sums up the book: "Good thing I watch a lot of television. If it wasn't for television, I wouldn't have any ideas at all. Sometimes I worried that I didn't have a signle thought in my head that wasn't already a cliche'."

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Shame on you, Janet..., January 2, 2006

By 

Bruce A. Smith "Book Lover" (Croghan, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Metro Girl (Alex Barnaby Series #1) (Hardcover)

As a die-hard NASCAR fan, I am not overly pleased that Janet "used" my passion to sell a less than mediocre story and make money off of me...shame on you, Janet.

My personal opinion is: This book is nothing other than another quick "put-em-out-and-sell-em" attempt that, unfortunately, seems to be the latest approach for many of our best-selling authors of late (can anyone spell James Patterson?).

The most discouraging thing is that I was sold on the NASCAR-GUY connnection...not impressed at all. I'm sure many others bought into this idea of a NASCAR themed book and it really had absolutely nothing to add to the storyline. Janet could've made her male hero an NFL/NHL/World Soccer League/World Wrestling Federation character and nothing would've changed...sorry, but just not impressed.

I may have giggled once or twice, but there simply was little to no SUBSTANCE and a whole lotta fluff here. Perhaps if I were on a beach in the tropics, I could've written this off as a pleasant summer read...unfortunately, I read this thing during the mid of winter in Northern New York and I was left feeling as cold as the air that seeps through my 30-year-old single-pane windows...

Sorry, Janet, but my money's much better spent on a couple of trackside tickets in Dover and Martinsville where REAL NASCAR stories unfold.