Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum Series
Consistent Plot Elements Provide Framework for Comic Misadventures
Jul 10, 2009
Critics consider Janet Evanovich's well regarded Stephanie Plum novels to be a mystery series. Part of the mystery involved consists in finding out why Evanovich's readers continue to acquire each new series title despite its predictability. The basic plot structure of the Stephanie Plum series has remained unchanged from the 1994 publication of its debut novel, One for the Money through the 2009 release of Finger Lickin' Fifteen.
Consistent Plot Elements in the Stephanie Plum Series
In each novel New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum and her friend Lula will search for another of the increasingly strange clients of Vincent Plum Bail Bonds who has failed to appear for his court date. During this search, Lula will seize the opportunity to shoot at someone.
Stephanie’s Grandma Mazur will decide to help them out, but she will also need to make a detour to Stiva’s Funeral Home for the viewing of a newly departed. Like Lula, Grandma Mazur will also manage to shoot at someone. Reassuringly, both Lula and Grandma Mazur are such poor marksmen that they will seldom actually hit their targets. Bystanders, however, will suffer frequent damage.
Stephanie will drive a series of cars, all of which will explode. Sometimes her apartment will get blown up too. She will then be forced to drive Grandma Mazur’s regrettably indestructible 1953 Buick and to seek shelter with either Joe Morelli or Carlos Manoso, better known as Ranger.
Joe and Ranger will help Stephanie resolve her current predicament and vie for her attention. Stephanie and her friends will get together for dinner at her parents' house, where her long suffering mother will become exasperated and her father will remain stoically silent.
Why Readers Enjoy the Stephanie Plum Series
The mystery of readers' continuing attraction to this series is not difficult to resolve.. With the Stephanie Plum novels, familiarity breeds comfort rather than contempt. The consistent framework of the series provides a stable platform for the increasingly ridiculous adventures of Stephanie and her accomplices.
In the June 19, 2009 New York Times Sunday Book Review, Marilyn Stasio reviewed Finger Lickin' Fifteen. Claiming that Evanovich "writes with flair in an absurdist vein that her imitators can only envy," Stasio offers her own explanation of the role of the repeated plot elements in Evanovich's series.
"Don’t kid yourself," writes Stasio, "going to sleep is a scary business. Which is why children are comforted by hearing the same stories over and over at bedtime. Certain kinds of mysteries have a similar effect on grown-ups, delivering familiar themes and ritualistic procedures that promise a safe haven in a world of darkness." The popularity of Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series testifies to the number of readers who have found such a "safe haven" within pages of these works.
About Janet Evanovich
New Jersey native Janet Evanovich began her Stephanie Plum series after a successful career writing romances for Bantam’s Loveswept series. “After twelve romance novels I ran out of sexual positions and decided to move into the mystery genre,” she explains on her website.
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