My Rating: 
Author: Janet Evanovich
Narrator: Lorelei King
Length: 6 hrs., 12 mins.
Publisher: Random House Audio
Publisher’s Summary: Before Stephanie can even step foot off Flight 127, Hawaii to Newark, she’s knee deep in trouble. Her dream vacation turned into a nightmare, and she’s flying back to New Jersey solo. Worse still, her seatmate never returned to the plane after the L.A. layover. Now he’s dead, in a garbage can, waiting for curbside pickup. His killer could be anyone. And a ragtag collection of thugs and psychos, not to mention the FBI, are all looking for a photograph the dead man was supposed to be carrying.
Only one other person has seen the missing photo: Stephanie Plum. Now she’s the target, and she doesn’t intend to end up in a garbage can. With the help of an FBI sketch artist, Stephanie re-creates the person in the photo. Unfortunately, the first sketch turns out to look like Tom Cruise, and the second sketch like Ashton Kutcher. Until Stephanie can improve her descriptive skills, she’ll need to watch her back.
Over at the bail bonds agency, things are going from bad to worse. The bonds bus serving as Vinnie’s temporary HQ goes up in smoke. Stephanie’s wheelman, Lula, falls in love with their largest skip yet. Lifetime arch nemesis Joyce Barnhardt moves into Stephanie’s apartment. And everyone wants to know what happened in Hawaii.
Morelli, Trenton’s hottest cop, isn’t talking about Hawaii. Ranger, the man of mystery, isn’t talking about Hawaii. And all Stephanie is willing to say about her Hawaiian vacation is… it’s complicated.
©2011 Janet Evanovich (P)2011 Random House Audio
My Review: My love of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series has grown into a full blown obsession. I’ve been counting down the days, hours and minutes until the release of her latest novel Explosive Eighteen.
If you follow Audiobook Fans on Twitter, you might have seen something like this:
Or this:
Or this:
Yes, I admit, I’m completely obsessed. This morning, first thing, I logged into my Audible account and used one of my credits I’d been hoarding to download the audiobook. Finally! Explosive Eighteen was mine!
Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter in Trenton, New Jersey that works for her slimy cousin Vinnie. Vinnie’s a freak but he’s a good bail bondsman and Steph does her best to capture the bond jumpers. As usual, office manager Connie and file clerk Lula are in the mix, although Lula never really does much filing.
In the beginning of this novel, Stephanie is returning from a steamy vacation in Hawaii. I won’t tell you who she took with her, but it was one of her love interests! I was really surprised that she took this guy. Seriously, I thought she’d grab Lula or Grandma Mazur to tag along for some fun. Then again, it’s hard to predict what will happen next in any of Evanovich’s work.
After some drama, Stephanie comes back from Hawaii alone and one of her fellow passengers from the plane has turned up dead. She doesn’t even know this dude but ends up in the middle of a huge mess. She has FBI agents, fake FBI agents, ex-fiancees and has all sorts of crazies coming out of the cracks to track her down for answers.
Don’t worry! The truth of the Hawaii trip comes out and it’s J-U-I-C-Y!!!! Be sure you don’t miss Explosive Eighteen, Evanovich has another winner on her hands. This audiobook was amazing!
And now, we wait! The nineteenth novel won’t be released until late next year so we’ll have to tie ourselves over by watching the movie One for the Money in January 2012! My plum junkies and I will be first in line at our local theater!
Narrator Review: Lorelei King gave another award worthy performance in Explosive Eighteen. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, King is my favorite narrator! She puts 110% of herself into the narration and the characters. I can’t imagine enjoying these half as much if she wasn’t involved.
