June 2014 – Life of Cri.me

Stephanie Plum is getting desperate. She’s running out of leads in the search for Jimmy Poletti, who was caught selling more than cars out of his New Jersey dealership. Even Joe Morelli, the city’s hottest cop, is struggling to find the criminal wheeler and dealer.

Stephanie’s No. 1 temptation, Ranger, is also struggling. There’s a killer in town with a personal vendetta against him. If Ranger wants to survive, he’ll need Stephanie’s help – and to reveal a piece of his mysterious past.

Death threats, highly trained assassins and highly untrained assassins are all in a day’s work for bounty hunter Stephanie Plum!

I always love getting hold of a the latest Stephanie Plum installment, and Top Secret Twenty One was no exception. As usual I switched off my phone, shut down my computer, settled into my comfiest chair with a fresh cup of coffee, and there I stayed from page one until I finished. Reading a new plum is like finding an old pair of jeans that you thought you’d lost, slipping them on and discovering a £5 note hidden in one of the pockets. Full of characters and places you know and are comfortable with, and containing a delightful hidden surprise.

There are some great twists and turns, and the usual collection of interwoven storylines, with my favourite part being about Ranger. Usually Stephanie’s ‘go to guy’ when in danger, this time round, he’s having his own issues which bring to light his own areas of weakness. This humbling and humanising of him was perfectly well crafted, it was just enough to display more of who he really is, without taking away the mysterious, almost godlike, level of his character.

In all, Top Secret Twenty-One sees Evanovich back with a bang (or four) and on top form for this latest Stephanie Plum adventure. It’s full of the usual mayhem, madness and murder, and with more intrigue and danger than ever. It’s yet another amazing read that devotees will devour in hours, and will easily ignite the curiosity of the newbie to investigate and indulge in the previous twenty plus books and novellas.

Chloe Benson wakes up kidnapped and bound in an underground tomb with no memory of how she got there.

She escapes through deserted woods with her life, but no one believes her story.

When she begins to suspect her husband is lying to her, Chloe is forced to retrace her past, following in her own footsteps to find the truth and stay alive.

But who is following Chloe?

Look Behind You. You never know who’s out there.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I began to read Look Behind You, as a psychological thriller is about as far away from the normal chick-lit novels that Hodge usually writes as you can get. What I discovered was a cleverly plotted thriller that grips you from the very beginning and with every turn of a new page will have you second guessing all that you think of the story so far…..

When Chloe escapes from her underground prison, she finds that she has lost the last seven weeks of her life, the last memory she has being of the evening of her husbands birthday party. Everyone around her believes that she is making up her story, saying that this has happened once before and was due to a breakdown following a miscarriage for which she has recently been hospitalised.

As Chloe tries to rebuild the missing weeks and resurrect her lost memories the story begins to twist and turn. Who kidnapped her? Is she really going mad? What really happened? and Who can she trust? Her search for answers will have you enthralled, and the first person point of view will put you firmly in her head, ensuring you experience her fear and frustration as she tries to prove the truth of what happened to those around her.

If you’re loading up your e-reader for your summer holidays, then this one is definitely worth adding.

Month: June 2014

Top Secret Twenty-One by Janet Evanovich

Look Behind You – Sibel Hodge