Book Review: Dirty Thirty, A Stephanie Plum Book (hilarious crime, female bounty hunter)

Dirty Thirty, by Janet Evanovich (Atria Books, 332 pp HB, 2023, $29.99) Review by Skye Anderson

A Fun Fast Read!

I can't believe we have not reviewed Janet Evanovich yet and she has written 44 bestsellers in 27 years. Dirty Thirty is her 30th of 31 fun crime novels, starring Stephanie Plum, Grandma Mazur, the voluptuous Lula, Ranger, Joe Morelli, Bob the big orange dog (a golden retriever), and Newark, New Jersey. If you have read Kinsey Milhone (Sue Grafton's alphabet series - 25),

Travis McGee (John MacDonald's color series - 43),

and Tess Monaghan (by Baltimorean Laura Lippman's 20),

you will love Stephanie Plum.

Our gal Stephanie finds bail bond runners (she's a bounty hunter) for a living and has two boyfriends: Morelli, a cop she went to high school with, and Ranger, a former "special" soldier turned security expert with his trusty sidekick, Tank. 

The Plot

The bad guys play dirty in this story so Stephanie is bound to be tempted to, after her apartment is bombed and her car is run into - twice. It starts with a jewelry story robbery, then another. But are the gems real or fake?

With females shooting up the town, in comes one more bad guy after another (and they work together) until the reader is inundated with a complex story. The one saving grace is Bob the hungry dog who eats couches and is attached to our heroine every minute. Bob the dog is not a major character but we appreciate his mention in every scene.

Bonus

This reviewer likes short chapters (present), chapters with titles rather than just numbers (missing), and plenty of dialogue (present) but author Janet Evanovich goes one better. Each chapter has a drawing of donuts, the 'other food group'. Yet, if you look closely you will notice that the number of donuts decreases as the book progresses. 

In this, the 30th book, the author has included 30 quotes, one from each of her Stephanie Plum books. My faves are from book 6: "Nice dress. Take it off." (Morelli) and from book 8: "I'm disappointed. Usually when I'm with you a car explodes or a building burns down." (Ranger)

The 31st Stephanie Plum book will be out later this year, on November 19, Now or Never.