Explosive Eighteen

YOUR holiday was interrupted by the arrival of one of your two on-off boyfriends who got into a fist fight with the other, which ended with both of them in hospital.

YOUR "once-in-a-lifetime'' Hawaiian holiday was interrupted by the surprise arrival of one of your two on-and-off boyfriends who promptly got into a fist fight with your other paramour, which culminated in you dropping both of them off (handcuffed together) at hospital.

So you took the path of least resistance and headed home, only to discover the passenger seated next to you on the flight had stuffed a photo in your luggage before getting himself murdered during a layover. You figure it's about time you returned to work, where your assistant, a former prostitute (also a morbidly obese fried chicken enthusiast) awaits.

Your gun-toting Jewish gran wants to know whether you can take her to the funeral home because her friend's husband has just died and the final viewing of his body is about to get under way. Refreshments will be served, so she doesn't want to be late. That's bounty hunter Stephanie Plum's fate in a nutshell, played out over the first 150 pages of Explosive Eighteen.

Like its 17 predecessors, the novel is a fast, furious and very funny ride for readers, with the main event - a deranged hitman nicknamed Razzle Dazzle, who's trying to kill her - almost forced into the background, thanks to the sheer number of supporting characters vying for readers' attention.

As always, Stephanie displays a prodigious ability to get herself and her ever-increasing collection of cars in situations where they're likely to be blown up, beaten down, shot at or cornered by the members of New Jersey's criminal underworld.

Evanovich has bagged herself a swag of crime-writing awards for her work and this latest novel is as good as anything she's published previously. A sure-fire hit with fans.

VERDICT: Goes off with a bang

Explosive Eighteen, Janet Evanovich, Hachette, $32.99.
 

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