Category: Contemporary

Dirty Thirty by Janet Evanovich

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Contemporary, Mystery, Part of a SeriesLeave a comment

Dirty Thirty (Stephanie Plum #30)Barbara’s rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
Series: Stephanie Plum #30
Publication Date: 10/31/23
Period: Contemporary Trenton, New Jersey
Number of Pages: 332

This quirky, entertaining, witty series is always good for bringing a smile to my face. This one had the zany stuff we usually see – firebombed apartments, car smashes, viewings at the funeral home, grave digging – all of it. Then, to add to it, the mystery in this one was more front-and-center than they usually are, and I liked that. Yes, the books can be silly – really silly – but there is something about the outlandish characters and bizarre crimes and situations that keep me wanting to read more. I love everything about the series except the love triangle between Morelli, Stephanie, and Ranger – it is okay on-page I guess, but if I were to know Stephanie in real life, I suspect I wouldn’t have much respect for her. More about that later…

There haven’t been too many bail-skips lately and Stephanie is running short of money. So, when a jewelry store owner who has recently been robbed wants to hire her to find the man he is sure robbed him, she agrees. The person she is hired to find is someone with whom she went to school – Andrew Manley, AKA Nutsy. Stephanie cannot imagine Nutsy doing what he is accused of doing and wants to know more, but then, there is a rash of bail skippers and she has to juggle finding them while she is also trying to find Nutsy and solve the jewelry theft. During all of that chaos, it seems Lula has either lost her mind totally, or she is being stalked by someone/something she has named Grendel (from Beowulf) because he is a tall, hairy, monster who sneaks into her room at night. How in the world will this can of worms ever get sorted? Insanely, of course!

Joseph Morelli, Stephanie’s mostly significant other is in Miami testifying at a trial, so he isn’t there to give her backup and support when she needs it. However, she isn’t without resources – definitely not. Ranger is there to step in and save her – loan her cars, give her a place to stay when her apartment is firebombed – coax her into his bed. The book ends with a cliffhanger (I hate cliffhangers) that, when resolved in the next book, will certainly change the course of the series, and the romance, and could perhaps, I guess, be the end of the series. It will be interesting to see where it goes and how the author handles it. For my two cents worth – Stephanie isn’t IN love with either of them – nor are they IN love with her. I think Stephanie loves each of them – and I think each of them loves her – but the IN LOVE, to me, just isn’t there for any of them. I like all of them and am not rooting for one man over the other because I don’t think either of them is just the right one for Stephanie. If one was the right man – Stephanie would have already made a choice instead of flip-flopping between them.

So, we had a nice wrap-up of the mystery and a cliffhanger along with lots of zany shenanigans. I had a smile on my face the whole way through and cannot wait to read the next installment to see the resolution to the cliffhanger.

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

View all my reviews

Some of Us Are Looking by Carlene O’Connor

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Contemporary, Mystery, Part of a SeriesLeave a comment

Some of Us Are Looking (County Kerry Mystery #2)

Barbara’s rating: 3.5 out of 5 Stars
Series: County Kerry Mystery #2
Publication Date: 10/24/23
Period: Contemporary Ireland
Number of Pages: 320

I love this author’s Irish Village Mysteries series because the characters are fun and interesting and the mysteries are not dark and brooding though they include murder. So, of course, I wanted to try this series as well. I read the first book and rated it well because the characters were certainly unique and though the story was on the dark side, I cut it some slack because of setting up the series, character backstories, etc. However, this second book is even darker and more brooding and the main character’s personality quirks just got to be annoying rather than endearing. It just seemed to drag in some spots and I found myself skimming over the slower and more plodding parts. I do like that the main characters are older – maybe in their forties.

After the last case, Inspector Cormac O’Brien has been permanently transferred to the lovely town of Dingle and is hoping to spend some quality time with his mother before she passes. That, of course, is a pipedream when a peaceful old man is deliberately run down on a country road. To make things even worse, a few days later the body of a beautiful young woman is found tied to a tree – with her hand chopped off. Cormac has done a very stupid thing and must recuse himself from running the case – but he can’t turn loose and let it go. Officially, the person in charge is Sergeant Barbara Neely, but Cormac is right in the middle of it.

Veterinarian Dimpna Wilde has her hands full running her father’s (now her) veterinary practice as well as assuring her father, who is in the advanced stages of dementia, gets the care he needs. Add a wayward son and a wild-child mother into the mix and she probably can’t handle much more. So, the last thing Dimpna needs is to find the body of a young woman tied to a tree.

Cormac, Neely, and the rest of their crew work through clue after clue after clue – and they all seem to point to different people – but mostly they point to the girl’s friends. With Dimpna adding more clues to the ones gathered by the guards, can they solve the murders before another one happens?

Yapping dogs, screeching parrots, and raging bulls all play a role in the very animal-oriented book(series). If you follow the animals, you’ll find the madman – and none too soon because he already has his list of other targets.

I wanted to really love Dimpna and Cormac, but I just couldn’t get there. I made allowances in the first book because of getting the series set up, but I actually liked them both better in the first book than I did in this one. I don’t think I’ll read the next book, but maybe I’ll try one further down the line to see how the characters have progressed. So, while it was a good mystery, I thought it was a bit slow and plodding and didn’t care for the main characters.

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

View all my reviews