Barbara’s rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Series: Stephanie Plum #28
Publication Date: 11/2/21
Period: Contemporary – The Burg (Trenton), USA
Number of Pages: 320

Diesel is back and he and Stephanie are looking for the same criminal. If you haven’t already met Diesel in previous books (and even from his own series a while back), here is how Stephanie describes him. “Diesel is over six feet of hard muscle and bad attitude…” Diesel has some talents that are very hard to explain and works for an organization that is even harder to pin down. He just appears in Stephanie’s apartment in the middle of the night, and he wants to stay with her. OOPS – how will her long-term boyfriend Joe Morelli feel about that?

Stephanie and Lula go about their business as Bail Enforcement Agents working for Stephanie’s cousin Vinnie. Some people are just easier to track down than others – and some are easier to apprehend than others – and some just steal your heart when you hear their stories. One of their FTAs (Failure To Appear) is Melvin Schwartz who was arrested because he hacked into the evening news and replaced the broadcast with a porno film. As one of seven members of the hacker group known as Baked Potato, Melvin is in more trouble than he knows because his group hacked into the ultimate, primo, hacker’s servers and now he’s after them. What started out as a lark for the Baked Potatoes, turns deadly and will cost all of them their lives if Stephanie, Diesel, Morelli, Lula, and Ranger can’t stop the revenge of Oswald Wednesday who did not appreciate being hacked.

Oswald is a psychopath who loves pain and torture, so when he manages to identify the Baked Potatoes, he takes great delight in torturing them prior to killing them. Oswald is very rich, very shrewd, very sly, and has all the skills and tools he needs to identify, track down, and dispose of each of the people responsible for hacking his servers. Soon, Stephanie is in his cross-hairs as well because she has dared to cross him and hide the people for whom he is looking.

As always, the story is entertaining, witty, and very well written. I absolutely adore all of the supporting characters – especially Lula and Stephanie’s mother. I believe I’d like to move to the Berg after hearing Stephanie’s description. “While many parts of the country are struggling with changing ideologies, the Burg continues to march to the beat of its own drum, thumbing its nose at political correctness.”

I can definitely recommend this book because it provided several hours of smiles and breath-holding entertainment for me – and I hope it will for you as well. Happy Reading!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

View all my reviews