Short & Sweet Review: Hardcore Twenty-Four by Janet Evanovich (audio)

Title: Hardcore Twenty-Four

Author: Janet Evanovich

Series: Stephanie Plum, #24

Narrator: Lorelei King

Published: November 2017, Random House Audio

Length: 6 hours 8 minutes

Source: Library

Summary: 

Janet Evanovich’s #1
New York Times bestselling sensation Stephanie Plum returns in her
twenty-fourth thriller as mutilated corpses litter the streets of New
Jersey…Trouble comes in bunches for Stephanie Plum.
First, professional grave robber and semi-professional loon, Simon
Diggery, won’t let her take him in until she agrees to care for his boa
constrictor, Ethel. Stephanie’s main qualification for babysitting an
extremely large snake is that she owns a stun gun—whether that’s for use
on the wandering serpent or the petrified neighbors remains to be seen.

Events
take a dark turn when headless bodies start appearing across town. At
first, it’s just corpses from a funeral home and the morgue that have
had the heads removed. But when a homeless man is murdered and dumped
behind a church Stephanie knows that she’s the only one with a prayer of
catching this killer.

If all that’s not enough, Diesel’s back in
town. The 6-foot-tall, blonde-haired hunk is a man who accepts no
limits—that includes locked doors, closed windows and underwear.
Trenton’s hottest cop, Joe Morelli isn’t pleased at this unexpected
arrival nor is Ranger, the high-powered security consultant who has his
own plans for Stephanie.

As usual Jersey’s favorite bounty hunter
is stuck in the middle with more questions than answers. What’s the
deal with Grandma Mazur’s latest online paramour? Who is behind the
startling epidemic of mutilated corpses? And is the enigmatic Diesel’s
sudden appearance a coincidence or the cause of recent deadly events?
 

***Short & Sweet Reviews are
short, quick reviews. These will mainly be used for series books where I
have already done full reviews on some of the earlier books or for
books that I feel will suffice with a quick review. These will not be
used for review requests or blog tours.

My thoughts: Do you ever continue with a series just to see how it will end? I think that’s where I am with the Stephanie Plum series. At book 24, I feel like it’s the same old, same old – Stephanie gets herself into crazy predicaments with Lula, some hi-jinx ensue, they eventually capture who they need to, and along the way, she ends up blowing up a car or two, with Ranger coming to her rescue as always. Does anyone else feel this way? And yet, I can’t abandon this series until I know how it’s going to end. Who is she going to end up with?

And speaking of romance, the love triangle is still going strong – Morelli and Ranger, Ranger and Morelli. Though, this time around, there was a new guy added to the mix – Diesel was staying at Stephanie’s apartment because he was involved in a case in the area and there is definitely some chemistry there, too. But seriously…how much longer can this be drawn out? 

I think what makes the series is the crazy humor, and that comes not only from Stephanie and Lula, but from Grandma Mazur. She is hands down one of my favorite characters ever! As Stephanie describes her in this book, “she is a hoot!” I can’t agree more!!! She definitely keeps me coming back – that and knowing that these books are pure mindless escapism.  

This one is filled with zombies, snakes and headless corpses…not my favorite things to read about, but the humor and the characters are what made it tolerable. So, are you sticking with this series to the very end or have you already bailed?

Audio thoughts: I just love Lorelei King and her narration of this series. Her enthusiasm for the characters and her unique voices is consistent from book to book, and as an avid audio book listener and avid series listener, I really appreciate that. This is just a fun book, and series, to listen to and Lorelei King makes it that much better!