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‘Finger Lickin’ Fifteen’ is good to the bone
Published November 1, 2009
Finger Lickin’
Fifteen
By Janet Evanovich
St. Martin’s Press
$27.95 hardcover
When Lula witnesses the bloody murder of famed chef Stanley Chipotle, who has come to Trenton to take part in a barbecue contest, bullets fly and meat cleavers whistle through the air as Chipotle’s inept murderers try to eliminate Lula, as well.
As Stephanie Plum attempts to corner some bond jumpers, she is hampered by the efforts to kill Lula, and also by the plan Lula and Stephanie’s Grandma Mazur have concocted to enter the barbecue contest.
They plan to win not only the hefty prize for that event, but also the $1 million reward for catching Chipotle’s killers, who will surely attend the event.
Stephanie and her off-again, on-again boyfriend, Morelli, are currently “off,” and the financially strapped Stephanie is working part-time for Ranger, which doesn’t help her relationship with Morelli.
Joyce Barnhardt, Stephanie’s longtime worst enemy, is making moves on both Morelli and Stephanie’s bond bailsman job, but when Joyce steals some spicy barbecue sauce she outsmarts herself, as well as creating havoc with Morelli and even his dog, Bob.
If you’re familiar with Evanovich’s kooky Stephanie Plum books, you’ll understand enough of this to immediately seek a copy of this one.
If you’re not, and if you have a funny bone, don’t delay buying or borrowing at least one of the series. Read it, and you’ll be hooked.
The Deep Blue Sea for Beginners
By Luanne Rice
Bantam
$25 hardcover
Rice’s novels center on family relationships, but that’s where the similarity between them ends.
In this one, Lyra Davis suffers a breakdown and leaves her husband and two young daughters to live on Capri. Her husband rears the girls for 10 years, but then he develops a brain cancer and dies.
Pell, the older girl, has been virtually a mother to her younger sister, Lucy, but now she is just a year from entering college, and she needs her mother to take over that position.
Her trip to Capri to talk to her mother and try to get her to go back to the United States turns out totally different than Pell had expected.
She meets her mother’s much older neighbor and his grandson, and learns some of the background information about her mother’s departure so many years earlier.
While the setting is idyllic, the revelation of secrets is hurtful, requiring Rice’s deft hand to bring two families together.
Intervention
By Robin Cook
G.P. Putnam’s Sons
$25.95 hardcover
Jack Stapleton, a New York City medical examiner, lost his first wife and their two daughters in an accident. Now remarried and the father of an infant son, his life is in chaos again, as the child is suffering with neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer.
As a physician, Jack is opposed to alternative medicine, particularly when he learns that the death of a young woman was caused by a chiropractor’s treatment.
He begins a crusade against chiropractors and others who offer alternative cures, but quickly learns how many people believe in them, and how unpopular his efforts have made him with his employers. It has been more than 30 years since Jack and two of his former best friends were together in college, but now they are about to cross paths again.
Shawn Daughtry is a renowned archaeologist who has discovered an ossuary containing the remains of a woman more than 2,000 years old — a woman he believes to have been Jesus’ mother, Mary. This find will put him at the very top of his field, and he is anxious to prove his theory and make it as public as possible.
The third of the college friends is James O’Rourke, now James Cardinal O’Rourke, bishop of the Archdiocese of New York — and possible candidate for the highest office his calling offers.
James is understandably opposed to Shawn’s plan to publicize his find as being the remains of Mary, Mother of Jesus, as it would contradict some of the teachings of the Catholic Church. Jack, who is involved mainly to keep his mind off the precarious state of his young son’s health, finds himself playing peacemaker between his friends — a role in which he had also been cast in college.
The a plot has numerous twists, as well as some insights into the various professions involved. It also features the deft characterizations that mark Cook’s novels.
Marie Beth Jones is a published author and freelance writer based in Angleton.
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