Stephanie Plum's career as a bounty hunter in Trenton, New Jersey, has honed her skills in breaking and entering, avoiding explosives, running after bad guys, eating fast food on the fly, and adapting to driving any style of car in minutes, if not seconds. Especially the car switching. If you're a Stephanie Plum fan, you expect her current ride to be blown up, but in "Notorious Nineteen" she goes for the world record. Maybe that's what the "Nineteen" is all about, although it's easy to lose count when multiple explosions wipe out parts of parking lots. Big Blue, her grandmother's enormous and indestructible 1950s Buick, which is Stephanie's dependable fallback, ends up as Trenton cop Joe Morelli's ride until he can replace his personal car.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is certain of three truths: People don t just vanish into thin air. Never anger old people. And don t do what Tiki tells you to do.

The most popular mystery writer alive. The New York Times

After a slow summer of chasing low-level skips for her cousin Vinnie s bail bonds agency, Stephanie Plum finally lands an assignment that could put her checkbook back in the black. Geoffrey Cubbin, facing trial for embezzling millions from Trenton s premier assisted-living facility, has mysteriously vanished from the hospital after an emergency appendectomy. Now it s on Stephanie to track him down. Unfortunately, Cubbin has disappeared without a trace, a witness, or his money-hungry wife. Rumors are stirring that he must have had help with the daring escape . . . or that maybe he never made it out of his room alive. Since the hospital staff s lips seem to be tighter than the security, and it s hard for Stephanie to blend in to assisted living, Stephanie s Grandma Mazur goes in undercover. But when a second felon goes missing from the same hospital, Stephanie is forced into working side by side with Trenton s hottest cop, Joe Morelli, in order to crack the case.

The real problem is, no Cubbin also means no way to pay the rent. Desperate for money or maybe just desperate Stephanie accepts a secondary job guarding her secretive and mouthwatering mentor Ranger from a deadly Special Forces adversary. While Stephanie is notorious for finding trouble, she may have found a little more than she bargained for this time around. Then again a little food poisoning, some threatening notes, and a bridesmaid s dress with an excess of taffeta never killed anyone . . . or did they? If Stephanie Plum wants to bring in a paycheck, she ll have to remember: No guts, no glory.

Auteur

Janet Evanovich is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Stephanie Plum series, the Lizzy and Diesel series, twelve romance novels, the Alexandra Barnaby novels and Trouble Maker graphic novel, and How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author, as well as the Fox and O’Hare series* *with co-author Lee Goldberg.

Texte du rabat

1 bestselling author Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels are: "irresistible" (Houston Chronicle), "stunning" (Booklist), "outrageous" (Publishers Weekly), "brilliantly evocative" (The Denver Post), and "making trouble and winning hearts" (USA Today).

New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is certain of three truths: People don't just vanish into thin air. Never anger old people. And don't do what Tiki tells you to do.

After a slow summer of chasing low-level skips for her cousin Vinnie's bail bonds agency, Stephanie Plum finally lands an assignment that could put her checkbook back in the black. Geoffrey Cubbin, facing trial for embezzling millions from Trenton's premier assisted-living facility, has mysteriously vanished from the hospital after an emergency appendectomy. Now it's on Stephanie to track him down. Unfortunately, Cubbin has disappeared without a trace, a witness, or his money-hungry wife. Rumors are stirring that he must have had help with the daring escape . . . or that maybe he never made it out of his room alive. Since the hospital staff's lips seem to be tighter than the security, and it's hard for Stephanie to blend in to assisted living, Stephanie's Grandma Mazur goes in undercover. But when a second felon goes missing from the same hospital, Stephanie is forced into working side by side with Trenton's hottest cop, Joe Morelli, in order to crack the case.

The real problem is, no Cubbin also means no way to pay the rent. Desperate for money-or maybe just desperate-Stephanie accepts a secondary job guarding her secretive and mouthwatering mentor Ranger from a deadly Special Forces adversary. While Stephanie is notorious for finding trouble, she may have found a little more than she bargained for this time around. Then again-a little food poisoning, some threatening notes, and a bridesmaid's dress with an excess of taffeta never killed anyone . . . or did they? If Stephanie Plum wants to bring in a paycheck, she'll have to remember: No guts, no glory.

Résumé
Janet Evanovich s Stephanie Plum novels are:

Making trouble and winning hearts. USA Today

Brilliantly evocative. The Denver Post

Irresistible. Houston Chronicle

Échantillon de lecture
ONE

I don t know why we gotta sit here baking in your car in the middle of the day, in the middle of the summer, in the middle of this crummy neighborhood, Lula said. It must be two hundred degrees in here. Why don t we have the air conditioning on?

It s broken, I told her.

Well, why don t you have your window open?

It s stuck closed.

Then why didn t we take my car? My car s got everything.

Your car is red and flashy. People notice it and remember it. This is the stealth car, I said.

Lula shifted in her seat. Stealth car, my big toe. This thing is a hunk of junk.

This was true, but it was my hunk of junk, and due to a professional dry spell it was all I could afford. Lula and I work for my cousin Vinnie s bail bonds office in Trenton, New Jersey. I m a fugitive apprehension agent, and Lula is my sometimes partner.

We were currently parked on Stark Street, doing surveillance on a rooming house, hoping to catch Melvin Barrel coming or going. He d been accused of possession with intent to sell, Vinnie bonded him out of jail, and Barrel hadn t shown for his court date. Lula makes a wage as the office file clerk, but I only make money if I catch skips, so I was motivated to tough it out in my hellishly hot car, hoping for a shot at snagging Barrel.

I worked this street when I was a ho, Lula said, but I was in a better section. This here block is for losers. No high-class ho would work this block. Darlene Gootch worked this block but it turned out she was killing people as a hobby.

Lula was fanning herself with a crumpled fast food bag she d found on the floor in the back of my car, and the smell of stale French fries and ketchup wafted out at me.

You keep waving that bag around and we re going to smell like we work the fry station at Cluck-in-a-Bucket, I said to her.

I hear you, Lula said. It s making me hungry, and much as I like the aroma of food grease, I don t want it stuck in my hair, on account of I just had my hair done. I picked out the piña colada conditioner so I d smell like a tropical island.

Lula s hair was fire-engine red today and straightened to the texture of boar bristle. Her brown skin was slick with sweat. Her extra-voluptuous plus-size body was squeezed into a size 2 petite poison-green spandex skirt, and the acres of flesh that constituted her chest overflowed a brilliant yellow spaghetti-strap tank top. At 5'5" she s a couple inches shorter than me. We re about the same age, which puts us in the proximity of thirtysomething. And we re both single.

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