Anyone who has enjoyed any of the eight previous Stephanie Plum novels would be very foolish to skip this one. If you haven't read any of those, you can safely start with this one . . . but don't expect the earlier ones to be nearly this good.
Stephanie Plum, the down home city girl from the Burg in Trenton, continues in her bounty hunter job, and she takes on some pretty unusual ones in To the Nines. As Stephanie describes it, her retrievals have more to do with Lucy Ricardo from I Love Lucy than with Wonder Woman. The book opens with Stephanie and Lula, her sometimes heavyweight sidekick, trying to pick up Punky Blalog. The rest of the escapade has to be read to be believed . . . but Vaseline plays a large role. When she returns to the office, she discovers that her cousin Vinnie faces an enormous embarrassment if he cannot find and bring in one Samuel Singh, a temporary worker from India, for whom Vinnie wrote a visa bond. Vinnie sends Stephanie and her mentor (and sometimes squeeze) Ranger out to find Singh. A major plot line of the book revolves around this search which takes her to Las Vegas before the book is done.
A secondary and engrossing plot involves the mystery of who is threatening Stephanie and killing people around her after she has lunch at McDonald's. Because of the threats, Ranger or his men play bodyguard for Stephanie whenever her undercover policeman boyfriend, Joe Morelli, isn't around. In many of the novels, Stephanie goes through cars like tissue paper. In this one, the bodyguards take it on the chin . . . and just about everywhere else.
A third and happier plot involves Stephanie and Morelli becoming much closer to one another.
A fourth plot focuses on Stephanie's unmarried sister, Valerie, who is nine months pregnant and the family's desire to get Valerie married and out of her parents' house.
There's also a fine and funny story line about Lula trying different diets so she can become a super model.
On top of these interesting plots and subplots, the mystery is quite engrossing. I had no idea what was really going on until about 60 pages from the end.
On top of this, the book is filled with hilarious little scenes featuring the manic members of the Burg, including her man-crazy Grandma Mazur, Morelli's Grandmother Bella who has visions of dead women all the time, the generously endowed Connie Rossolli from Vinnie's office, and even Stephanie's mother who's having trouble coping.
The pace of this book is amazing. There's something significant happening on almost every page. The scenes intersect with each other in truly inspired ways. For example, while Stephanie is finishing up her first bounty hunting gig, she gets an emergency call from her Grandmother Mazur. And you'll never guess what the problem is. The result of that scene then cuts into a woman making off-color comments about Stephanie because she seems to have an excess of Vaseline about her. And on it goes. The laughs come almost as fast.
I was thoroughly delighted with this book . . . except for one little problem. It was totally clear who the evil doer was in the last 60 pages. The attempts at misdirection seemed strangely inept. If Ms. Evanovich had cut down that section, this book would have been the perfect Plum. As it is, I think To the Nines is my favorite Plum to date.
After you finish racing break-neck through these pages, think about where your heart's desires may be leading you in contradictory directions. Then, go do something about it!