Review: Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich (audio)

Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich

Read by Lorelei King

Audio Renaissance

2005

Length: 8.5 hours

Source: Library

From the back of the audio case:  Stephanie Plum is
thinking her career as a fugitive apprehension agent has run its course.
She’s been shot at, spat at, cussed at, fire-bombed, mooned, and
attacked by dogs. Time for a change, Stephanie thinks. Time to find the
kind of job her mother can tell her friends about without making the
sign of the cross.

So Stephanie Plum quits. Resigns. No
looking back. No changing her mind. She wants something safe and normal.
As it turns out, jobs that are safe and normal for most people aren’t
necessarily safe and normal for Stephanie Plum. Trouble follows her. Her past has come back
to haunt her. She’s stalked by a maniac returned from the grave for the
sole purpose of putting her into a burial plot of her own. He’s killed
before, and he’ll kill again if given the chance. Caught between staying
far away from the bounty hunter business and staying alive, Stephanie
reexamines her life and the possibility that being a bounty hunter is
the solution rather than the problem. After disturbingly brief careers
at the button factory, Kan Klean Dry Cleaners, and Cluck-in-a-Bucket,
Stephanie takes an office position in security, working for Ranger, the
sexiest, baddest bounty hunter and businessman on two continents. It
might not be the job she’ll keep for the rest of her life, but for now
it gives her the technical access she needs to find her stalker. Tempers
and temperatures rise as competition ratchets up between the two men in
her life—her on-again, off-again boyfriend, tough Trenton cop Joe
Morelli, and her bad-ass boss, Ranger. Can Stephanie Plum take the heat? 

Between the adventure and the adversity there’s attitude, and Stephanie Plum’s got plenty in her newest adventure, Eleven on Top.

My thoughts: Another hysterical adventure for Stephanie…oh how I love this series!!! I think I made the right choice in deciding to go with the audio version of the books for this whole series. They are the funniest, most engaging audios I have ever listened to.

This time around, Stephanie has had enough – she’s tired of being shot at and wants a change in career. Of course, Stephanie being Stephanie, this is much easier said than done. It seems that trouble seems to follow her from job to job. She finally ends up working at Ranger’s security company which gives her access to all sorts of secure information…information that just might help her figure out who’s been stalking her and most likely causing the recent trouble she’s encountered.

Since Stephanie decided to quit being a bounty hunter, Lula jumps at the opportunity to replace her. What a riot!!! She thinks herself so important and sees herself as so busy that she needs to use abbreviations in all her conversation as a way of saving time. And of course, there’s Grandma Mazur – another of my favorite characters in this series. I love that she loves going to viewings at the funeral home – just so she can see how the person is laid out and everyone knows that she has a habit of trying to open closed caskets, so the funeral home tends to nail these ones shut!

Of course, there’s still the love triangle going on…and I wonder if one day this will ever be decided. It seems, though, that both are resigned to the fact that they need to keep an eye on Stephanie. They even go as far as flipping a coin to decide who would get to clean up Stephanie after one of the incidents in the story…how funny is that?

Audio thoughts: As much as I loved listening to CJ Critt narrate the earlier books in this series, I do have to say that I am enjoying Lorelei King. She has her own version of unique voices for each character and brings humor into the scenes as needed. She is definitely growing on me as a narrator for this series.

*** Devourer of Books
hosts Sound Bytes every Friday – a meme to share the audio books that
everyone is listening to. Stop by and you just might find your next
audio book!

Books in this series:

     1.  One for the Money                         12.  Twelve Sharp
     2.  Two for the Dough                         12.5  Plum Lovin’
     3.  Three to Get Deadly                      13.  Lean Mean Thirteen
     4.  Four to Score                                   13.5  Plum Lucky
     5.  High Five                                           14.  Fearless Fourteen
     6.  Hot Six                                                14.5  Plum Spooky
     7.  Seven Up                                           15.  Finger Lickin’ Fifteen
     8.  Hard Eight                                         16.  Sizzling Sixteen

     8.5  Visions of Sugar Plums              17.  Smokin’ Seventeen

     9.  To the Nines                                      18.  Explosive Eighteen

    10.  Ten Big Ones                                    19.  Notorious Nineteen

    11.  Eleven on Top