One for the Money and Two for the Dough by Janet Evanovich

I had never read any Janet Evanovich before, and I found these two books a lot of fun. Not knowing anything about her background, I first thought that the detailed descriptions of what Stephanie is wearing at all times, and what she eats, were a link to Raymond Chandler (right from the first paragraph of Chandler’s The Big Sleep, you are given a detailed description of Philip Marlowe’s clothes). However, I later discovered that her background is in romantic fiction, so it’s possible that writing these descriptions is now completely second nature to her. It’s interesting that two such completely different genres can have this kind of overlap.

As detective stories, the plots weren’t anything special (but then, neither are Chandler’s), but I enjoyed the comedy and the slightly surreal nature of the minor characters. Though I hope Stephanie does become slightly more competent as the series progresses – obviously, she’ll never be as good as Morelli or Ranger (doesn’t have their training or background) but it would be nice if just occasionally they could mess up and need her to rescue them.

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