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This is actually the tenth in the Stephanie Plum bounty hunter series, following on from Visions of Sugarplums, but thankfully more down to earth, if not fully grounded. Stephanie’s employer Vinnie has, amidst a blaze of publicity, issued a new type of bond, a visa bond, designed to ensure that an overseas worker will leave the country when his visa expires. With only a few days left, Samuel Singh disappears from his lodgings at the home of Mama Apusenja and her daughter Nonnie, to whom he had become engaged. Also missing is Nonnie’s dog, Boo, who she seems to be much more concerned about. Samuel has lived quietly in Trenton and thus the main leads for Stephanie to follow up centre around the company where he had been working, TriBro, which takes its name for the three brothers who run it. But Samuel’s contacts, some of them very slight acquaintances, are suddenly being killed, and Stephanie is receiving threats and gruesome photos of the victims. Working mainly with Lula, Stephanie soon comes to accept the bodyguards provided by (and of course including) Ranger are necessary, and as you would expect this sets up the usual tensions with her cop boyfriend Joe Morelli. But when Stephanie gets a tip that Singh may be in Vegas, she sets off with Connie and Lula in tow to track him down. Meanwhile at her parents home, her sister is about to give birth to her child with Albert Kloughn, and life is as chaotic as ever. After a few mildly disappointing and repetitive episodes in the Plum series, To the Nines marks a great return to form. No cars explode, despite the cover of the book, and if you like the character of Lula you’re in for a treat as she struggles with a diet. Humour is very personal of course, and while its pretty slapstick in this series, I found To The Nines the funniest book in the series for some time. The bad guy was fairly obvious and since I rarely guess whodunit I was surprised it dawned on Stephanie so late. But that didn’t really matter; the plot was complicated enough, the characters were fun, and it was a great read.
Reviewed by Bridget Bolton, July 2003
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