Three to Get Deadly (Stephanie Plum Series #3)

From Barnes & Noble

In Three to Get Deadly, Stephanie's got the unenviable task of tracking a lovable guy who suspiciously jumps bail after committing a hand-slappin' crime. It gets more bizarre, and before long, Stephanie's up to her Glock in body bags.

From the Publisher

"[Evanovich's novels are] among the great joys of contemporary crime fiction." —GQ

"Suspenseful." —Los Angeles Times

"Terrific." —San Francisco Chronicle

"Irresistible." —Kirkus Reviews

"Thrilling." —The Midwest Book Review

"Hilariously funny." —USA Today

"A blast of fresh air." —The Washington Post

"Inventive and fast-paced." —San Diego Union-Tribune

"Superb." —Detroit Free Press

LA Times

Suspenseful

People

Here's Stephanie Plum, a bail-bond agent from Trenton, NJ, clumping onto the P.I. scene in Doc Martens, with a sassy lip that would stop Phillip Marlowe.

San Francisco Chronicle

Terrific.

MIdwest Book Review

Thrilling.

GQ

[Evanovich's novels are] among the great joys of contemporary crime fiction.

Publishers Weekly

Trenton, N.J., bounty hunter and former lingerie buyer Stephanie Plum (last seen in Two for the Dough) becomes persona non grata when she tracks down a neighborhood saint who has failed to show up for his court appearance. No one wants to help Stephanie, who works for her bail-bondsman cousin, Vinnie. While questioning admirers of the man nicknamed Uncle Mo, Stephanie is attacked and knocked out as she cases his candy store. She comes to next to the dead body of her attacker, who turns out to be a well-known drug dealer. Suddenly, she can't avoid stumbling across the bodies of dead drug dealers: one in a dumpster, one in a closet and four in the candy store basement. Stephanie suspects that mild-mannered Mo has become a vigilante and is cleaning up the streets in a one-man killing spree. But when she's repeatedly threatened by men wearing ski masks, she wonders if Mo has company and just might be in over his head. Despite her new clownish orange hair job, Stephanie muddles through another case full of snappy one-liners as well as corpses. By turns buttressed and hobbled by her charmingly clueless family and various cohorts (including streetwise co-worker Lulu, detective and heartthrob Morelli and professional bounty hunter Ranger), the redoubtable Stephanie is a character crying out for a screen debut.

Publishers Weekly

Trenton, N.J., bounty hunter and former lingerie buyer Stephanie Plum (last seen in Two for the Dough) becomes persona non grata when she tracks down a neighborhood saint who has failed to show up for his court appearance. No one wants to help Stephanie, who works for her bail-bondsman cousin, Vinnie. While questioning admirers of the man nicknamed Uncle Mo, Stephanie is attacked and knocked out as she cases his candy store. She comes to next to the dead body of her attacker, who turns out to be a well-known drug dealer. Suddenly, she can't avoid stumbling across the bodies of dead drug dealers: one in a dumpster, one in a closet and four in the candy store basement. Stephanie suspects that mild-mannered Mo has become a vigilante and is cleaning up the streets in a one-man killing spree. But when she's repeatedly threatened by men wearing ski masks, she wonders if Mo has company and just might be in over his head. Despite her new clownish orange hair job, Stephanie muddles through another case full of snappy one-liners as well as corpses. By turns buttressed and hobbled by her charmingly clueless family and various cohorts (including streetwise co-worker Lulu, detective and heartthrob Morelli and professional bounty hunter Ranger), the redoubtable Stephanie is a character crying out for a screen debut. Mystery Guild selection; Literary Guild alternate; major ad/promo; author tour. (Feb.)

Library Journal

Hunting for a local candy-store owner who jumped bail, Trenton's most famous bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum (last seen in Two for the Dough, LJ 1/96) is knocked out on the job. She awakens beside a dead man who happens to be in violation of a bond agreement with her cousin Vinnie, so homicide wants to give her the third degree. More fast and funny action from a winning writer. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/96.]

Kirkus Reviews

Most of the "Failure To Appears" that bounty hunter Stephanie Plum goes after are no great loss to society; it's only their girlfriends and bowling partners who don't want them caught. But Moses Bedemier is no ordinary FTA. The candy-store owner pulled in on a concealed-weapon charge is a popular guy in his Trenton neighborhood, and nobody but Stephanie cares whether he sets a new court date. So when Stephanie goes after Uncle Mo, the path is littered with the bodies of buddies who've thrown themselves in the way—and some bodies that have been thrown by other folks, too. Before long, Stephanie, on her second illegal visit to Mo's apartment, comes across the first of four dead drug dealers (and she'll soon lead her onetime-lover/constant nemesis Joe Morelli and his colleagues on the Trenton Police to four more, though the cops have to dig these four up themselves). What's the connection between staunch if slippery Uncle Mo and the bad guys? Why do a bunch of ski-masked thugs keep threatening Stephanie and her hamster with violence if she doesn't lay off Mo? And what can she do about the hideous orange color her hair turned in the middle of a chase after still another FTA?

Stephanie's third case (Two for the Dough, 1996, etc.) dispenses almost entirely with mystery and detection in favor of a comedy/variety format. But in going repeatedly for the funny bone, Evanovich, who clearly agrees with her heroine that "adaptation is one of the great advantages to being born and bred in Jersey," is obviously dealing from strength.