Eleven on Top (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Stephanie Plum, Trenton's favorite bondswoman, is having a career crisis, which gives Janet Evanovich plenty of opportunities to showcase her series heroine in a variety of alternative vocations, from dry cleaner to factory worker. Most of them don't last a full working day, which is good for the reader, since it plunges Stephanie back into the always seedy, often dangerous, and always colorful world of fugitives who'd rather flee than face their day in court. She may be tired of having her life threatened, her cars torched or blown up, and her apartment broken into, but one thing she can say about her job is that it's never boring... and neither is she. Despite her intentions of going straight at a job with a little more security and a bit less excitement, an old client won't let her--he keeps leaving her threatening notes, stalking and scaring her, and making sure she needs the protection of the two men in her life--Joe Morelli, the sexy cop who's been bedding her since high school, and Ranger, the even sexier tough guy who can take down the meanest fugitive around but has a tender spot in his heart for the plucky Ms. Plum. All Evanovich fans' favorite characters people this sprightly caper novel, including Lula, the fast-food-chomping former hooker who's hot to take over Stephanie's job but really belongs in a WWE Takedown; Grandma Mazur, who'd rather go to a wake than a fancy-dress ball; Grandma Bella, the matriarch of the Morelli family whose evil eye frightens even the indomitable Stephanie; and Valerie, Stephanie's sister, who's about to embark on another trip to the altar. A great beach read, Eleven on Top is a guilty pleasure that will delight readers of the author's 10 earlier novels and should win her even more fans. --Jane Adams

Amazon.com Exclusive Content

Amazon.com's Significant Seven
Janet Evanovich kindly agreed to take the life quiz we like to give to all our authors: the Amazon.com Significant Seven.

Q: What book has had the most significant impact on your life?
A: Uncle Scrooge adventures by Carl Barks. They gave me a lifelong love of the adventure story both in film and literature. And I wouldn't mind pushing my quarters around with a bulldozer in real life, either.

Q: You are stranded on a desert island with only one book, one CD, and one DVD--what are they?
A: Book: The Neiman Marcus holiday catalog (I can pretend I'm shopping.)
CD: MTV’s Grind, Volume 1 (Happy music and I love the samba.)
DVD: Shrek 2 (Happy movie.)

Q: What is the worst lie you've ever told?
A: "No. Your butt doesn't look big in those pants." Said to myself.

Q: Describe the perfect writing environment.
A: No phone. Locked door. Room service. Silence. My cat (Gus) on my lap.

Q: If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?
A: "Later, Dudes!"

Q: Who is the one person living or dead that you would like to have dinner with?
A: Jim Henson (creator of the Muppets)

Q: If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
A: The ability to eat Cheez Doodles and Krispy Kremes and never get fat.

The Stephanie Plum Series

One for the Money	Two for the Dough	Three to Get Deadly
Four to Score	High Five	Hot Six

See the entire Stephanie Plum series.

From Publishers Weekly

New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum (last seen in 2004's Ten Big Ones) stumbles out of the gate due to some forced humor, but she eventually hits her usual entertaining stride in a tale that includes exploding cars, volatile wedding preparations and heated romantic entanglements. Stephanie decides to quit her job and seek less dangerous work after receiving a couple of disquieting notes. But the notes turn to threats and attacks, and she learns that her ineptitude is not confined to bounty hunting but transfers well to a succession of low-paying, sometimes humiliating jobs. After taking on Stephanie's previous duties, sidekick Lula naturally calls on Stephanie to lend a hand so that her bounty hunting travails continue unabated. Foul-mouthed Lula proves to have some pretty brutal ideas about how to bring 'em back. Bestseller Evanovich may be performing the same tricks over and over at this point in the series (the bumbling sleuth act, sexual-tension jokes, etc.), but most readers will find this a pleasing romp.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1St Edition edition (June 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312306261
• ISBN-13: 978-0312306267
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (360 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #142,064 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 11 in The Stephanie Plum Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

105 of 119 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Romance+Humor!!! This one's even got a great mystery! , June 21, 2005

By	R. Kyle (USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Of course, I had to read "Eleven on Top" today. I can't remember ever not finishing a new Janet Evanovich novel the first day I got one. "Eleven's" no different!

"Eleven" is different from its predecessors in that Stephanie Plum actually takes the advice of I've lost count how many people and quits her bounty hunter job in search of a real job. She's lucky--she gets the first job she applies for at the button factory, and the second with a local dry cleaners, and the with a fast-food chicken franchise "Cluck in a Bucket"....all with disastrously funny results.

THe triangle between Steph, Joe Morelli, and Ranger is throbbing with tension. This is particularly so since Stephanie ends up working for Ranger at Rangeman Security--to keep safe. Which hunk is going to claim Steph this time--and for how long? I'm not telling!

Steph is also being stalked by someone who tells her she thought they were dead. They attack with bullets, fire....Meanwhile, Steph, Ranger, and Joe are all looking for four Trenton men who have disappeared with their cars on the same day. This plotline is a real mystery folks and had me guessing all the way through the book. Definitely a great addition to the Plum series....

Oh yeah, and the laughs keep on coming. Your favorites are here: Grandma Mazur, the eighty year old teenager, the prospective brother-in-law Albert Kloughn...

All the Stephanie books are better than Prozac and almost as good as chocolate to cheer a person up.

Evanovich is right: "Eleven" is DEFINITELY on top.

53 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A bit over the top, June 22, 2005

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

Stephanie has decided being a bounty hunter is too dangerous, so she quits her job working for Cousin Vinnie and tries to find something safer. After working for the button factory (fired before she even starts work), a dry cleaners, and Kluck-in-a-Bucket, she finally ends up working for Ranger. However, someone is still trying to kill her, and her cars are getting blown up at an alarming rate.

Also, her sister Valerie is getting married, and Stephanie is expeetec to walk up the aisle dressed in eggplant. And for no very good reason she has told her family that she can play the cello (she can't) and they are expecting her to play it at the wedding. And then she decides she is going to give up eating sugar, could things get any worse?

There are a lot of funny scenes, my favourite is the one where Grandma Mazur and Grandma Bella hav a fight (in the funeral parlour, where else?). However, I found myself slightly less gripped by this one than by the previous volumes. Maybe it's because she's not a bounty hunter any more, but there seemed to be less excitement and suspense than in the other stories. And I found the denoument too preposterous to believe. Also I found myself wondering how much longer she can keep stringing Morelli along without making a committment, before he just gets fed up with her.

Never mind, you don't read a Stephanie Plum novel for the realism, you read it for the laughs, and there are plenty of those, more than you get with most other authors anyway.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Man, I love this series..., June 28, 2005

By	Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

It's a good day when the latest Stephanie Plum novel shows up... Eleven On Top by Janet Evanovich. This may be one of my favorites of the series...

Stephanie Plum has decided to quit the bounty hunting business. Her life isn't going anywhere, and she's decided to get a steady job with a regular paycheck. Of course, not having anyone shoot at her or blow up her car would be nice too. But of course, nothing is normal or steady when it comes to Ms. Plum's life. She gets fired on day one from the button factory. She gets fired from the dry cleaning job after a couple of days (and when the matriarch of the owner's family dies when Plum's car blows up). And her job in the fast food business ends after a day when the chicken restaurant she works at burns down after a couple of days. So why all the pyrotechnics? Someone's apparently out to settle an old score, and Stephanie's life seems to be in peril. Threatening notes, exploding car bombs, exploding garages, burning restaurants, and she's not even in the business any more. Add into the mix that she's now working for Ranger at the same time she's trying to nurse Morelli back to health from a broken leg...

As I said above, this may be one of my favorites in the Stephanie Plum series. I enjoyed the interaction between her and Lula as Lula tries to take over her old job (and still get Stephanie to help with all the apprehensions). There's a bit more Ranger time as you learn more about his business, as well as wondering whether Stephanie will succumb to her urges to jump his bones. And her gramma is as zany as ever. Even though you think you know how the story is shaping up, there are still plenty of twists that accelerate at the end, making sure that I stayed up later than I wanted to find out how it all ended.

A good, fun read, and another excellent installment in the series...