Motor
Mouth
An
Alexandra Barnaby Mystery
Janet
Evanovich
HarperCollins
(Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-06-058403-3 (0060584033)
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-058403-0 (9780060584030)
Publication Date: October 2006
List Price: $26.95
Synopsis (from
the publisher): Those Metro maniacs Alexandra "Barney" Barnaby and
NASCAR driver Sam Hooker are back!
Miami is still freakin' humid. The nights are even hotter. And there's
a body on ice. And that's just the beginning of this adrenaline-rush of
a hot-wired ride from phenomenal #1 New York Times bestselling author
Janet Evanovich.
A woman with a taste for speed and a talent for breaking the rules,
Barney also knows a little too much about cheating. First there was
Hooker and that salesclerk. Now she's convinced one of the competitors
is up to no good on the track. Snooping to find evidence, Hooker and
Barney "borrow" a NASCAR hauler. Turns out, the hauler is carrying two
race cars and a dead guy. Now Barney and Hooker are facing multiple
counts of grand theft auto and homicide.
So buckle up as Barney, Hooker, a 150-pound-bundle-of-St. Bernard-love
named Beans, and the Super Cigar Ladies Felicia and Rosa shift into
gear on a wild race around South Florida and Concord, North Carolina.
Everything you always wanted to know about righteous indignation,
stealing an eighteen-wheeler, and sex in the fast lane.
Review:
Alexandra Barnaby returns for her second adventure in Janet Evanovich's
Motor
Mouth, an enjoyable though
completely forgettable mystery by the author of the Stephanie Plum
series.
There isn't (pun intended) an idle moment in this book. The action is
literally non-stop. The reason "Barney" and NASCAR driver Sam Hooker
seem to be constantly stopping for food (usually a local drive-through)
is that they need all the energy they can get to keep pace with the
plot.
And what a plot it is. The basic premise of this series is, why bother
with a simple solution to a problem when a far more complicated,
intricate, and, to be fair, thrilling one can be manufactured. When an
associate of Barney's calls to say he's locked himself into a
competitor's truck, she solves the problem by stealing the truck. That
happens to contain an illegally modified race car. And that also
happens to contain a dead body. And not just any dead body, but the
owner of the competition which has just won a race under suspicious
circumstances. At the center of all this is a microchip that has the
potential to alter the balance of power in the world of NASCAR, nay,
the world itself.
There are a lot of parallels between this series and the typical Nancy
Drew mystery. The most obvious is that Barney is an R-rated, some might
argue X-rated, version of the girl sleuth. Both are smart and
independent. Friends and family are important and worth taking risks
for. Bending the rules (or in the case of Barney, committing outright
felonies) is a perfectly acceptable means to an end. And, as Barney
puts it in Motor
Mouth, they are
"simultaneously horrified and impressed" with themselves when they
narrowly escape a dangerous situation.
Motor
Mouth is one of those
mysteries that readers probably need to invoke the 30-page rule: if
you're not hooked by this page, it's unlikely you're going to be
entertained by what follows.
Special thanks to Book Report Network for providing a copy of Motor Mouth for this review.
Review Copyright © 2007 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read Motor Mouth? How would you rate it?
Mysteries in this series …
Metro
Girl
HarperCollins (Hardcover), November 2004
ISBN-10: 0-06-058400-9 (0060584009)
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-058400-9 (9780060584009)
Motor Mouth
HarperCollins (Hardcover), October 2006
ISBN-10: 0-06-058403-3 (0060584033)
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-058403-0 (9780060584030)
Omnimystery
keywords for Motor Mouth
...
Location(s) referenced: Miami,
Florida, North
Carolina.
