Stephanie Plum: Difference between revisions

The books are pretty funny, with surreal humour, [[Every Car Is a Pinto|exploding cars]], [[Cool Old Lady|the weirdness that is Grandma Mazur]] and some take-downs gone very dodgy.

 

 

A spinoff series focusing on Diesel (who appears in the "between the numbers" books) is also underway. The first book, ''Wicked Appetite'', was released in September 2010. The second book, ''Wicked Business'', will be released in June 2012.

* [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking]] "Hard to feel lucky when I've just let a depressed senior citizen slip through my fingers, found a dead woman in his shed, and sat through dinner with my parents."

* [[Amateur Sleuth]]: In practice, she's more amateur detective than bounty hunter. She only starts investigating because of her bounties, but sometimes she is asked to find missing people.

** Stephanie has also caught one of her bounties in flagrante delicto in the backseat of their car.

** And a slight aversion: Stephanie and Morelli ''almost'' do it in a car until she finds out he bugged her. That's when she leaves him in a bad neighborhood with no pants. But then she comes back and gives him his gun.

* [[Cool Car]]: Uncle Sandor's Buick. Guys love it (and have said the exact same phrase about it), and it's indestructible to boot. Stephanie doesn't share their opinion on the Buick's inherent coolness, because it guzzles gas like there's no tomorrow. However, she does appreciate the car's indestructibility, and on at least one occasion deliberately uses it.

* [[Cool Old Lady]]: Grandma Mazur, of course.

* [[Cop Boyfriend]]: Joe Morelli

* [[Cross Dresser]]: Sally Sweet. He plays it for laughs, [[Drag Queen|being in a band full of 'em]]. Has expressed an interest in making his act [[Wholesome Crossdresser|wholesome]].

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Connie, most of the time. Ranger, though most people don't see it coming and it causes spit-takes and choking.

* [[Depraved Homosexual]]: Sugar, in ''Four to Score''. He lives with "Sally", and is in love with him. He tries to kill Stephanie because he believes she's stealing his boyfriend (when there's no actual relationship, as Sally is straight).

** By the thirteenth book, Steph finds out that all the Rangeman guys have been taking bets on when she'll blow up the next car. Ranger writes the ever-increasing cost off in his budget under "entertainment".

* [[Mr. Fanservice]]: In order of increasing hotness (or so the reader is told): Diesel, Morelli, and Ranger.

* [[Extreme Omnivore]]: Bob. He eats just about whatever smells good, including furniture and car parts.

* [[Fair Cop]]: Joe Morelli, as most of Trenton's female population will attest.

* [[Fake Static]]: Stephanie does this on several occasions to either Morelli or her mother.

* [[First-Person Smartass]]: Oh god...

* [[The Fun in Funeral]]: Grandma Mazur likes to attend viewings at the local funeral home and gets annoyed when it's a closed coffin viewing. She has on several occasions tried to open said coffin.

** Or the time that the funeral home got blown up.

* [[In-Series Nickname]]: Ranger's pet name for Stephanie, "Babe". Morelli calls her "Cupcake".

* [[I Was Told There Would Be Cake]]: It's Stephanie's [[Trademark Favorite Food]].

* [[Joisey]]: Set almost exclusively in Trenton.

* [[Kingpin in His Gym]]: Benito Ramirez and his Stark Street gym.

* [[Long Running Book Series]]

{{quote| ''...Trenton. In the old days, it would have been a prize, but the old days were gone and the Mob no longer exclusively ran Trenton. The Mob had to share the Trenton pie with Russian thugs, kid gangs, Asian triads, black and Hispanic gangstas.''}}

** Also, Connie, whose uncle is a notorious Jersey mafioso, and Vinnie's wife, whose father is mafia, too.

* ~Of Corpse He's Alive~

* [[One Steve Limit]]: Averted. A large number of first names appear twice throughout the series - Joe, Bob, Susan, even strange ones like Sandor.

* [[Psycho Sidekick]]: Ranger, though whenever they work together Stephanie usually ends up being his sidekick rather than the other way around. He's somewhat less psycho than most other examples.

** Lula, with her penchant for tasering everything in sight.

* [[Road Apples]]: As mentioned above, Bob eats everything. That has to go somewhere, and Stephanie decides that Joyce's front lawn makes an ideal toilet. Vinnie's staff, with the obvious exception of Joyce, approves.

* [[Sanity Ball]]: Half the time, Steph is boggled by the sheer weirdness of her nearest and dearest. The other half the time, they're boggling at her.