Top Secret Twenty-One: A Stephanie Plum Novel Audio CD – Unabridged, June 17, 2014

This past year, I have read all of Janet Evanovich's books. I have to say I like her style. There is humor, imagination, great characters and situations, and almost no grammatical errors. Her books are fun to read, and generally leave me feeling good. I consider them like I would a favorite TV show -- more episodes along a formulaic line.This one left me feeling like Stephanie was finally giving Ranger pause to consider her a likely mate. Joe is still in the running if Stephanie's biological clock should suddenly go off. And grandma and Lula are still hamming up the scenes. Overall, I think this is a pretty satisfying Stephanie Plum episode.

I can't believe it took me this long to finish this book. Gone are the days of waiting with breathe that is baited for the next book, and staying up all night to speed through the book, one belly laugh after another. It took me this long because it bored me to sleep within 10 minutes of picking it up each night.Now don't get me wrong, I've LOVED Stephanie, I might have even ordered some Tasty Cakes off Amazon just to see what they were all about, and I might or might not have purchased a $10 SAMPLE of Ranger's shower gel, hoarding it, allowing only friends that love Stephanie to use it as hand soap......but.....deep sighI don't even think the same person wrote this whole book. I think Janet zipped off a few scenes and an outline and gave it to some unimaginative intern to fill in the blanks. The antics have gone from outrageously funny, laugh out loud and scare the dogs to downright stupid.I know how I would save the books:Stephanie needs to cut both Joe and Ranger loose. Joe needs to get married to a blonde bombshell and Steph needs to loose her mind and rip her jeans just one last time, in the bushes outside the church trying to see in the windows. Ranger needs to become a phantom dream, and she needs to concentrate capturing interesting and outrageous skips, bring back the good supporting character, like Sally Sweet ( who might be a suit now), and Mooner. Grandma is getting on in years, but she's got plenty of spunk left....I think you get my drift....

I'm giving this one three stars simply because this story actually managed to hold my interest fairly well. I have hated the last several books, so this one was a marginally pleasant surprise, though it's not on par with the first 10 to 12 books of the series.In this story, we actually have something (kind of) going on with Ranger, so he is more of a focus here than he is in most of these books. Still, though, you've also got the usual stuff that has gotten so old: Stephanie's vehicles getting trashed or firebombed, her apartment being firebombed, she gets punched in the face, Grandma Mazur has ridiculous antics, and of course the usual triangle crap between Stephanie, Morelli, and Ranger. The triangle thing just isn't entertaining anymore. This series has been going on for so long that it's like the characters are just stuck in a time loop. Nothing new ever develops, and Stephanie has basically become a skank bouncing around between two guys. Furthermore, at this point I'm even wondering what the hell either of those guys really see in her. She's a thirtysomething, average looking girl with no career, no money, and no prospects, yet she has a career police detective and a mysterious badass panting after her all the time. Really? Why? Both of those guys should have better options.Fictional timeline or not, the same old things being rehashed over and over again just gets really old. I stopped paying anywhere near full price for these books a long time ago, which is why I'm just up to book 21. I already have the next two or three of these loaded on my Kindle (I got them on the cheap), so I'll continue with the series. The books are just not worth paying much for after about book 10 or 12. From that point on, everything is on annoying repeat. At regular price, all of these books are WAY overpriced, especially considering that most of them are several years old now.

Can the Stephanie Plum books get any better? Yes, it's the best book yet. Don't the antics begin to get stale? No they don't. This book has so many subplots going on, and this is Stephanie's most successful book to date on catching FTA's. Of course, if she didn't have to buy a new car every book she would be more financially independent. In this book she gets to learn more of Ranger's past, and Ranger fills one of Grandma Mazur's bucket list items. And Stephanie gets a look at Morelli's bucket list, but the list totally involves Stephanie.

Janet Evanovich's Twenty-One is once again a fun read. Stephanie Plum is once again in the middle of trying to find and FTA who is just a bit short in stature! She finds him okay and now it seems that she needs to baby sit him. His apartment is nearly destroyed by a rocket! She trys to find one other FTA who's business partners are being killed one by one! But who is the killer and why? She finds herself along with Ranger heading to Atlantic City to try a find a Ruusian that also wants her and Ranger dead! What in the world is going on? Not only does she end up baby sitting a man that was the business man's book keeper, but she also has a few puppies dumped in her lap. This is fast moving and funny. Oh, Grandma is in trouble with Stephanie's boy friend, Morelli, a detective, grandma. You will laught out lound. Rated "R" for sexual and language content. DP. Castro Valley, CA.

Immediately as soon as I began reading this book, I felt it had a very different feel to it. My initial feeling when startng the first page was I had opened the wrong file on my kindle and I actually went back to the home page to check. So I think twenty one was a definite change in tone for the author, and more of a return to earlier novels.Anyone who follows this series knows there has been has a lot of criticism recently regarding the development of the central characters, and I can't say this latest edition really did make that leap that I think a lot of people are looking for. It did however seem to have a more grown up and developed plot. Also Stephanie as the main protagonist cut a more subtle figure, even the way she dressed seemed to reflect it. She also seemed to have made a choice between the men in her life, and I felt this added to her more mature take on the madness that is her life.Don't worry though there were a lot of laugh out loud moments, and the usual tally of car loss and explosions, which just adds to the lovely flavour of this delicious dish, and is one of the most important ingredients involved.Stephanie also ruminates at times in the stories progress about where she is in life. She does seem then further on in the novel to answer the questions she is asking herself, which led me to wonder if this was the author answering some of the levelled criticism that has been written about this issue.The answer I felt was ultimately that these adventures are what they are. Personally without Rangers interventions and temptations, Lula's loudness, Grandmas loose canon status, Joe Morelli's gorgeousness, and the other assorted places and people that are Ms Plum's world, we wouldn't all be reading these endlessly entertaining romps, however light they might be. Any real change would disrupt this too much. Well for me anyway.I am happy to carry on buying these books, and look forward to twenty two. Overall this was a much better offering compared to recent ones, and I feel real excitement about reading the next instalment, and long live Stephanie Plum.

Like a lot of readers (or at least the reviews I've read) I enjoyed the first couple of books and then drifted off after a while as nothing seemed to change. Book 21 is the first I've read for a couple of years and really nothing has changed. Stephanie still seems as incompetent (yet lucky) as before as well as undecided as to who she wants to be with and blowing up cars. The other characters haven't changed in the slightest. Grandma is still wacky and hanging out at the funeral parlour, her mum (mom?) is still ironing and even the Rex the hamster is still going strong.If this is the first book you've read or you're relatively new to the series then there's a lot to enjoy. Everything that was funny in the earlier books is still here and for me that's the problem. After 20 books I would have liked to see a bit of change, a bit of character development even some changes in the regulars but nothing. Its as it we're on book 5 or 6 rather than 21 and I might as well re-read the earlier books.

This book was chosen as our book club read. WHY did we start at 21.Brilliant, funny and a real laugh out loud book. WHY did we not read book 1 first.Well I'm told it doesn't really matter but know I want to read all the other books, but damn the cost. I have to read more.I don't want to give the story away but it had a few obvious twists and turns but was so very funny in places. An absolute hilarious easy read.

A good book. all the books in the series are good and have great stories in them.they are exciting, the people make you like them, even most of the villains, although you might not like some of them.there are car chases and shoot outs and death defying moments.Each book can be read as a separate book, but I recommend you read the whole series.

Have read all the Plum books and while they are now all very similar and I don't rush to buy the newest one I treated myself to a Kindle version of this for a recent holiday and really enjoyed reading by the pool, still makes me laugh and very easy to read, although you don't need to read the whole series I would recommend starting at one for the money. I wonder how long the series can go on for but if you need a book for a long journey or beach reading then you can't go far wrong with this.