Review: Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich (audio)

Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich

Read by Lorelei King

MacMillan Audio

2008

Length: 7 hours

Source: Library

Bounty Hunter Stephanie Plum goes on her most explosive adventure yet.

The Crime:  Armed robbery to the tune of nine million dollars

Dom Rizzi robbed a bank, stashed the money, and did the time. His family couldn’t be more proud. He always was the smart one.

The Cousin:  Joe Morelli

Joe
Morelli, Dom Rizzi, and Dom’s sister, Loretta, are cousins. Morelli is a
cop, Rizzi robs banks, and Loretta is a single mother waiting tables at
the firehouse. The all-American family.

The Complications:  Murder, kidnapping, destruction of personal property, and acid reflux

Less
than a week after Dom’s release from prison, Joe Morelli has shadowy
figures breaking into his house and dying in his basement. He’s getting
threatening messages, Loretta is kidnapped, and Dom is missing.

The Cupcake:  Stephanie Plum

Stephanie
and Morelli have a long-standing relationship that involves sex,
affection, and driving each other nuts. She’s a bond enforcement agent
with more luck than talent, and she’s involved in this
bank-robbery-gone-bad disaster from day one.

The Crisis:  A favor for Ranger

Security
expert Carlos Manoso, street name Ranger, has a job for Stephanie that
will involve night work. Morelli has his own ideas regarding Stephanie’s
evening activities.

The Conclusion:  Only the fearless should listen to Fourteen.

Thrills, chills, and incontinence may result.

My thoughts: As most of you know, one of the challenges I signed up for this year was the Finish the Series Challenge , hosted by Socrates’ Book Reviews and one of the series I decided I wanted to get caught up with, or finish, is the Stephanie Plum series. As an added bonus, I decided I would do all audio for this series. Well, I am absolutely loving this decision. These audios are in a word – hysterical!!!

This time around, Stephanie gets caught up in a case involving boyfriend Joe Morelli’s cousin. It seems that the money that Dom Rizzi stole and then did time for in prison is still out there. Now the people involved in the heist want to find that money and somehow Joe’s house seems to be involved. On top of that, Dom’s sister Loretta runs into some legal trouble of her own, gets put in jail and needs someone to take care of her son, Mario – who happens to go by the name Zook. Since there are no other responsible relatives, that job falls to Stephanie and Joe…a great test for their relationship, if you ask me!!! They need to make sure he gets to school, not get into trouble, and make arrangements when both are busy. Just like normal parenting. Will this be the push to get them to finally tie the knot?

And now on to Lula…Can I just say that I absolutely love Lula!!! She is definitely a huge part of why I love this series so much. She’s been dating Tank, one of Ranger’s men, for a while, and has decided that they need to get married, so she basically manipulates the situation to her liking and tells everyone she’s engaged. Connie’s response, “Does Tank know he’s engaged?” just proves that Lula marches to her own beat.

My other favorite character is Grandma Mazur – she’s just a pip! I can honestly say that I am no longer surprised by anything she does (and she’s done quite a lot in this series!). This time, she gets all caught up in Zook’s gaming world, going so far as to even dress like a punk and changing her name to Scorch…I mean, come on, who has a granny like that!

This was another fun adventure in the life of Stephanie Plum. There’s plenty of action and we meet some unsavory characters, and get to revisit some from previous books that we haven’t seen in a while. I can’t imagine what the next book brings…

Audio Thoughts: Lorelei King has done it again – another good production of a Janet Evanovich story. I can see why Janet wanted to have Lorelei narrate these books. Once I finish up this series, I do plan on listening to something else that Lorelei King has narrated. Do you know any non-Janet Evanovich books that she’s narrated?

*** Devourer of Books
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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