Metro Girl (Alex Barnaby Series #1)
Alexandra (Barney) Barnaby roars onto the Miami Beach scene in hot pursuit of her missing baby brother, "Wild" Bill. Leave it to the maverick of the family to get Barney involved with high-speed car chases, a search for sunken treasure, and Sam Hooker, a NASCAR driver who’s good at revving a woman's engine.\ Engaged in a deadly race, Bill has "borrowed" Hooker's sixty-five-foot Hatteras and sailed off into the sunset...just when Hooker has plans for the boat. Hooker figures he'll attach...
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She writes "high speed comic mayhem" (Detroit Free Press); she's "a blast of fresh air" (Washington Post), "side-splittingly funny" (Publishers Weekly) and "a winner" (Glamour). In other words, she's Janet Evanovich. And she debuts at HarperCollins with a spectacular new novel, complete with high stakes, hot nights, murder and graft. Not to mention car chases, car races, car explosions, and car--well, you get the idea. Alexandra Barnaby got the brains in her family. The little gray cells certainly bypassed Barney's younger brother, Wild Bill. He's a pretty good boat captain but he's taken on a new job with his eyes conveniently closed. Before long, Bill goes missing, so Barney is dispatched to Florida with the bugs and the heat and the bad-hair-day humidity. Barney's thinking things can't get too much worse as she makes the rounds of South Beach, unemployed and sunburned, following her brother's trail of broken-hearted bimbos.Too bad for Barney--she's wrong about the getting worse part. Enter Sam Hooker. Somebody's stolen his boat and the trail leads to--you guessed it--Wild Bill. Since Will Bill is missing, Hooker decides to follow Barney and see if she can lead him to his boat.Dogs and cats never die in the world of Evanovich, and bad guys are almost always brought to justice. Sam Hooker and Alexandra Barnaby, in their quest to reclaim what's theirs, blast through Florida from Daytona straight on to Key West, exposing a plot to grab Cuban land and to lay waste the people involved. Cussing and tasteless sexual inneuendo included.The Washington Post - Maureen CorriganBy the time Barney and Hooker were stranded, "Survivor"-style, on a desert island complete with creepy-crawly creatures and a rogue bomb, I was won over by the sheer comic ingenuity of Metro Girl's loopy plot.
\ From Barnes & NobleTaking a break from her bestselling Stephanie Plum series, Janet Evanovich's new stylish stand-alone thriller is now available in a signed limited edition.\ \ \ \ \ Tulsa World"The action is lickety-split"\ \ \ Boston Globe"Moves at a breezy pace, engaging the reader...fun in the Florida fast lane."\ \ \ \ \ Kansas City Star"Clever, approachable characters."\ \ \ \ \ Tampa Tribune"Clever, fast-paced."\ \ \ \ \ Raleigh News & Observer"A quirky, fast-paced thriller."\ \ \ \ \ Pittsburgh Tribune"Breezy."\ \ \ \ \ Detroit Free Press"A fast, crisp book."\ \ \ \ \ Newhouse News Service"A lot of fun."\ \ \ \ \ Orlando Sentinel"A rib-splitting debut."\ \ \ \ \ Washington Post"Sheer comic ingenuity."\ \ \ \ \ Reviewingtheedvidence.com"Cracking fun."\ \ \ \ \ St. Louis Post-Dispatch"This is a bright and breezy book, and a welcome change for Evanovich fans."\ \ \ \ \ New York Times"A spunky heroine....cheery."\ \ \ \ \ Columbus Dispatch"The characters are breezy and spontaneous....Evanovich’s story has attitude."\ \ \ \ \ Arizona Republic"Screwball entertainment."\ \ \ \ \ Miami New Times"A mysterious romp involving cold-blooded murder and a sexy NASCAR driver."\ \ \ \ \ Maureen CorriganBy the time Barney and Hooker were stranded, "Survivor"-style, on a desert island complete with creepy-crawly creatures and a rogue bomb, I was won over by the sheer comic ingenuity of Metro Girl's loopy plot.\ — The Washington Post\ \ \ \ \ Publishers Weekly"Just because I know how to change a guy's oil doesn't mean I want to spend the rest of my life on my back, staring up his undercarriage." From the word go, Evanovich delivers her usual goods, albeit in a different vehicle. After 10 Stephanie Plum novels, each more successful than the last, Evanovich introduces Alexandra Barnaby, aka Barney. Barney hails from Baltimore rather than New Jersey, but she's from the same slice of working-class life as Stephanie; she donned mechanic's overalls in her father's garage during summer breaks from college. Her younger brother, Wild Bill, shares her passion for cars, and now he's disappeared from Miami, along with NASCAR star Sam Hooker's boat, the Happy Hooker. Evanovich doesn't mind showing her romance roots, as Barney and Sam start off snarling at each other; as any reader can tell, they have to team up (a) to save Bill and (b) to enjoy delicious sex. As in the Plum books, plot takes a back seat to riffs, roughups and dialogue-and in the last lies the book's most notable distinction. If Stephanie bids fair to be New Jersey's Dorothy Parker, Barney is Baltimore's echo of Robert Parker. Conversation is terse and coded, full of sexual innuendo, with a high premium on toss-away lines uttered under duress. Despite the amazing quantity of physical jeopardy, there's little tension; it's all about hanging out with Metro Girl and NASCAR Guy-which may be just what millions of Evanovich fans will want. Agent, Robert Gottlieb. (Nov.) Forecast: Evanovich will see major marketing for her HarperCollins debut, including TV and prints ads and a national bus tour with the author, her webmaster daughter and Barnaby the St. Bernard, which means that Alexandra Barnaby will likely prove as popular as Stephanie Plum (the Plum novels are published by St. Martin's). Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalSimultaneous with the HarperCollins hardcover. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.\ \ \ \ \ School Library JournalAdult/High School-A comic misadventure from the start, this mystery is a good combination of light thriller and fast-paced action. Alex Barnaby receives a late-night call from her brother that ends in mid-sentence with a woman screaming in the background. Being the dependable sister that she is, she catches the next flight down to Miami to find out what happened. Alex soon discovers that her brother has gone missing with a recent Cuban immigrant who may or may not know the location of a warhead and a fortune in gold. She cuts down the inept bad guys with her wit and a few well-placed accidental kicks and moves. For fans of the author's "Stephanie Plum" series, the book is a letdown as there are moments when readers have to suspend disbelief and accept contrived plot twists. Evanovich is better at dialogue than description, which may frustrate some seasoned readers, but the dialogue is what keeps the story moving and is, ultimately, the novel's saving grace.-Erin Dennington, Chantilly Regional Library, VA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.\ \
