High Five

Fans of Evanovich's tales of the adventures of Stephanie Plum (Four to Score, etc.), Jersey girl and bounty hunter extraordinaire, have been eagerly anticipating this next installment in the popular series. The good news is that the novel is just as wacky and over the top as its predecessors, and that the disaster-prone Stephanie has brought along her usual wild-and-crazy crew of sidekicks and loony relatives to help her chase down felons. Evanovich even manages to make the dowdy working-class city of Trenton, N.J., seem like a hip, edgy place for her funky characters to live. But Trenton also has its share of nefarious criminals for Stephanie to pursue--folk like Randy Briggs, the dwarf, who not only repeatedly eludes her grasp but keeps taunting her as a loser. Stephanie careens through her days, looking for her missing Uncle Fred and taking on FTA (failure to appear) cases for her cousin Vinnie, a bail bondsman. Further complications ensue when she tries to earn extra money by moonlighting on quasi-legal ""security"" jobs for Ranger, her dangerously sexy mentor at the bounty-hunting game. Ranger is looking awfully good to Stephanie these days, and she is finding it hard to choose between him and old flame Joe Morelli. Evanovich tells her fast-paced and furiously funny story expertly. The action never stops, the dialogue is snappy and the characters are more than memorable. Readers can't miss with this one. (July)