After the short story that was Visions of Sugar Plums, Janet Evanovich returns to top form again with To The Nines.

This particular adventure involves our plucky heroine; Stephanie Plum given the case of tracking down Samuel Singh whose work visa was just about to expire. Actually, as this is such a high profile case, Ranger was given the case and Stephanie plays side kick to the uber bounty hunter.

As is usual though, things do go according to plan and so Stephanie ends up having to follow a lead to Las Vegas sans Ranger but ably assisted by Lula and the office manager of the bonds office where she work; Connie.

Not only that, but Stephanie may have to deal with the fact that this may not be a simple case of a runaway, but a deadly game when people start turning up either dead or missing. On top of that, Valerie, her very pregnant sister is due any moment and Joe Morelli's grandmother Bella is having terrible premonitions of impending doom.

I'll get the bad stuff out of the way first and that's basically that it's no surprise who the bad guy in this story is. You could practically point a finger as soon as they are introduced and go "It's you!" They are too obvious, as it the red herring. But, to be honest, it doesn't matter as these stories aren't read as proper 'whodunit's but rather as 'howdoesshedoit's.

All the regular cast have their parts to play. Only the arch-nemesis of Joyce Barnhardt is missing but it's good to see Connie get more page time and actually get out of the office.

Like all of the Stephanie Plum books so far, whilst this is the ninth in the series, there is no need to have read the previous books as there is nothing major alluded to. This book stands very well on it's own and so will be a treat for new comers to the series and regulars like me.