Hardcore Twenty-Four (Stephanie Plum 24)

The early books in this series were genuinely entertaining. When a chance to pick this one up cheaply for Kindle came along, I thought there would be no harm in giving it a read. Mistake. It is simply awful. It has no plot whatsoever. It involves a boa constrictor from the opening pages, giving it repeated appearances throughout the book for no discernible purpose other than to make the central characters squirm and fill out plot-free pages (there are a lot of them). The lead character somehow attracts not one but three cardboard cut-out two-dimensional hunks who spend their whole lives hoping to get her into bed. Did I mention that the whole book is plot-free? The closest thing to entertainment is the occasional brush with Grandma Mazur; and even she's getting boring. The author is clinging merrily to the cash train that is a long-running hit series, but she has apparently decided that even her faithful audience is not worth doing any work for, and stopped delivering anything worth reading. If the option were available to give zero stars, I would.

For those of us who've been 'in it' since book one, finding that Stephanie Plum and her friends and family are still chugging along two dozen books later can come as a bit of a shock. Even though nothing really changes - Rex the hamster is well past the point of getting his long service medal, Stephanie is still wrecking cars and sleeping around, Lola is still squeezing donuts into herself and herself into too-tight spandex, and neither Ranger nor Joe Morelli is holding Stephanie to account for sexual behaviour that was tiring well back in the early books and still seems no closer to being resolved.Of course, the plots are silly. Of course, the characters are cartoon-like, but if you're on number 24 you're not expecting anything else. This time Stephanie is trying to round up the usual baddies, one of whom seems to be involved with zombies, another has lost his snake (not a euphemism) and yet one more is stalking his wife who just happens to be obsessed with painting gnomes. So nothing too un-Plum there then. Stephanie's mum still drinks too much to cope with Stephanie's granny and there are plenty of trips to the funeral parlour to entertain - but this time there's a big problem with headless corpses. And just to add a bit of spice, there's a character called Diesel (whom I don't recall from earlier books but perhaps that's because they've become so interchangeable) thrown in to give an extra sparkle to Plum's already overly complicated love-life. Wasn't Diesel a werewolf or a vampire or some such nonsense in the 'Wicked' series? I made it about 30 pages into one of those before I called time on that supernatural guff. Please don't let's make Stephanie has sex with anybody supernatural - at least not if Rex is watching.I thought this one was a bit light on plot - usually there are more interwoven side stories and - aside from the risk of having her brain sucked out with a straw - seemed a bit more 'safe' than a lot of recent books. We all KNOW zombies don't exist but the apparent explanation for the missing brains was a bit too silly this time.I'll be back for 25 and subsequent books but even I know these are getting a bit too silly.

Really loved the Stephanie Plum series in the beginning but recent books have been really disappointing. This is the worst one ever, Stephanie has no morals, either be with Morelli, but stop the bed hoping with Ranger. And now Diesel ! the cars getting wrecked is boring, Grandma and Lula are no longer amusing. doubt I will buy any more. just a waste of money. what a shame.

very disappointing, this series is getting stale. No laughs for me. Diesel doesn't belong in this series and bringing him in didn't add anything. I liked Grandma's little dog but otherwise, I think this series isn't going anywhere - pity, because it was such fun and now it's tired.

I enjoyed this. There is nothing new here, but I think that's why I keep returning to these books. It's like going into bakery everyday and choosing your favourite pastry. You enjoy it more for the familiarity of knowing what to expect rather than sampling other unknown products.So as usual Stephanie is rounding up the usual FTA's, Lula is permanently hungry and setting new and unusual fashion trends. Ranger has more cars to give away and anything else our heroine is interested in taking.Morelli is still sort of with the accident prone Ms Plum. The stalwart mother and the strange grandmother are also featured here. There is also an appearance from occasional character Diesel, which I got bored of very fast, as it didn't seem to go anywhere, and I couldn't see plotwise how it helped to develop the story at all in anyway.The villians as usual always know where the leading lady lives, her hampster is still more interested in his can than her, and more vehicles are trashed, whatever !There's a zombie theme in keeping with popular shows of the moment which I enjoyed for what its worth. A very large snake also takes up a fair amount of the story line. Bad diet choices are made, corpes are ever popular things to visit and a lot of Trentons residents seem to work at the Button factory.Like I said for me there wasn't anything to develop the character's overall arcs if they actually have them, I'm not sure about that. If there is an arc, it has become a little stuck anyway.The whole love triangle thing is very uninspiring and it's hard to care if Stephanie is so unbothered herself. If that storyline was dropped completely I wouldn't notice, as I read these books for the weird people the bounty hunter chases, and the madness that ensues when Lula gets involved. The men are so one dimensional as described in the stories, and only seem to exist to make the reader see the main character in a more attractive light as they continue to lust after her and to rescue her.If you like all of the above and don't require anymore than that, I highly recommend this. All said I will probably read the next one.