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MOTOR MOUTH
by Janet Evanovich
HarperCollins, May 2006
400 pages
12.99 GBP
ISBN: 0007176244


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

All you Janet Evanovich aficionados must really be in heaven these days, now that you have Alex Barnaby as well as Stephanie Plum on whom to gorge. With MOTOR MOUTH you have the gorgeous Alex Barnaby making a follow-up entrance onto the stage, preparing for another jet-propelled take-off to enliven the circuit of your driven lives.

METRO GIRL saw 'Barney' chuck her old home and her old job to go to work for NASCAR driver, pin-up boy Sam Hooker. Despite the fact that Alex and Sam enjoyed a brief, intense, well, friendship, for want of a better word, Alex is now determined they keep their relationship on a professional footing. Hooker has not been able to focus his eyes on the single prize of Barney but has allowed himself to stray off course and enjoy a brief burst of passion with a sales clerk.

When Hooker comes in second to the 69 car driven by Dicky Bonnano, aka Spanky, neither he nor Barney can believe there was nothing murky about the loss. Subsequent events make it seem almost impossible that Spanky could have won through his own driving talent unassisted by some advanced technology.

Gobbles, the 'spotter' for driver Nick Shrin, confides in Alex and Sam that he has problems. He soon has even worse problems from which Hooker and Barney rescue him but in the meantime they get themselves heavily involved in a situation tied to the crooked Huevo brothers (one of whom just happens to be a corpse) and equipment with which the Huevos intend making another fortune.

Together with Beans, the omnivorous and ever-hungry St Bernard dog, Alex and Sam tear across the countryside, attempting to protect themselves from the Huevo entourage. They encounter some rather striking characters en route, not the least being the newly-minted Huevo widow (who was about to be a Huevo cast-off) and her miniature canine companion Itsy Poo.

Evanovich is, as everyone knows by now, a dab hand at producing hilarious situations that even made this jaded reviewer laugh. The author's invention of Beans generates much laughing gas, too, and the book's baddies could make one shudder, were they not so funny. Evanovich has even included some scenes as funny as, and reminiscent of, that wonderful J T Story book, THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY.

After much judicious contemplation, I can say, without fear of contradiction, that Alex Barnaby is an equal place-getter with Stephanie Plum in the ratings race.

Reviewed by Denise Pickles, September 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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