Hardcore Twenty Four

Hardcore Twenty-Four by Janet Evanovich

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

Janet Evanovich's books are not for everyone. If you're looking for complex introspective characters with deep emotions and progressive character arcs, you should probably take a pass on these. In addition her plot structure is pretty straight forward. She makes use of the mystery, or perhaps detective genre but her chief focus is on humour and she's quite good at that. You will find a number of literary tropes in these pages but she uses them in such an engaging fashion that it's impossible to become bored. When reading these books you know before you open them what you are going to get and she provides it. They are light, rather frivolous, works of entertainment and they are very much entertaining.

In Hardcore Twenty-Four she branches out very slightly by adding a crossover character, Diesel, to the mix. She doesn't actually write fantasy for the most part but she does include the occasional hint that perhaps some of her characters have abilities that transcend the norm. In this book she makes use of zombies but, of course these aren't real zombies. They are perfectly normal humans who act as if they were resurrected from the dead, and, yes, they do have an interest in brains but, it turns out, not in the culinary sense.

Ms. Evanovich makes use of short, terse sentences to a large extent that convey something of the feeling of classic detective novels - Phillip Marlowe, Sam Spade - that sort of thing. They keep up the pacing but she softens them just enough so the reader isn't overwhelmed. She is an absolute master of her craft and if you like this genre, Hardcore Twenty-Four is one you will thoroughly enjoy.



View all my reviews