The wait is almost over. Number fourteen on the Stephanie Plum hit parade is set to drop June 17^th. The problem is, what do you do while you wait? We have some suggestions.

First, did you know that starting a couple of months before the publishing date of her newest book, you can go to Janet Evanovich’s web site (www.evanovich.com), where she will have posted the beginning of the book? Get a jump on all your friends!

Second, we just received a book called Perfectly Plum: Unauthorized Essays On the Life, Loves, and Other Disasters of Stephanie Plum, Trenton Bounty Hunter. It’s a book of essays, written by authors who are also Plum fans, which addresses such burning questions as, Morelli or Ranger? Could Lula possibly be considered a role model? and, something we’ve all wondered at some point or another, How does this woman get car insurance!?

I know, having read the beginning of Fearless Fourteen online, that Steph has made it through the first ten pages or so without having a single car blow up, catch on fire, or get smushed by a burning garbage truck. If you’ve read the whole series, you know that’s a situation that’s unlikely to last. Just to get you ready for the inevitable mayhem, we’ve assembled a list of the most memorable automotive crashes, smashes, and burns in the Stephanie Plum series. Your challenge is to match the crash to the book. There’s one accident per book, and we’ve included the holiday novellas. Read each description, print out the entry form, fill it out with the title of the book in which each crash appears, and drop the completed form in the contest box at the Fairborn Library. You may win your own copy of Fearless Fourteen! Contest will end on June 17th, so make sure you get your entry form to the library before then. Happy hunting!

Download the Entry Form. (It’s a .pdf)

Click the link below to read the quotes.

P.S. There is another Fearless Fourteen contest at the library. When you bring in your form, make sure to check it out. You could win a Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpet like Stephanie always eats!

A)

I caught a flash of black beyond the crane. It was Ranger’s Mercedes.
“Just in time,” I said when he strolled over.
He looked down at the flattened, charred piece of scrap metal pressed into the macadam.
“That’s the Porsche,” I said.
“It exploded and caught fire and then the garbage truck fell over on it.”
“I especially like the part about the garbage truck.”
“I was afraid you might be mad.”
“Cars are easy to come by, Babe. People are harder to replace.”

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B)

Grandma squinted up and down the street. “Where’s your car?”
It sort of caught fire.”
“Did the tires pop off? Was there an explosion?”
“Yep.”
“Darn! I wish I’d seen that. I always miss the good stuff. How’d it catch fire this time?”
“It happened at a crime scene.”

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C)

I was standing facing my car, and behind me, I could hear windows being thrown open in my apartment building. It was Lorraine in her nightie and Mo in his cap. They’d just settled their brains for a long winter’s nap in front of the television. When out in the lot there arose such a clatter, they sprang from their recliners to see what was the matter. Away to the window they flew like a flash, tore open the blinds and threw up the sash. And what to their wondering eyes should appear, but Stephanie Plum and yet another of her cars burning front to rear.

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D)

I headed out and did a fast check on my car before getting in. No spray-painted slogans suggesting I was a slut. Windows hadn’t been broken by a sledgehammer. No ticking noises coming from the undercarriage. Looked to me like Carmen hadn’t yet discovered my address.

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E)

We went out the door together and found Moon standing in the parking lot, watching my car burn. There were a bunch of cops with extinguishers working on it, but things didn’t look too hopeful. A fire truck rolled down the street, lights flashing, and pulled through the chain-link gate.
“Hey, man,” Moon said to me. Real shame about your car. That’s mad crazy, dude.”

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F)

I grabbed my defense spray and bolted out the door and down the stairs. I was barefoot, wearing a Mickey Mouse nightshirt and a pair of Jockey string bikinis, and I could have cared less.
I was through the back door with my foot on the pavement when I saw Beyers turn the key and step on the accelerator. A split second later the car exploded with a deafening blast, sending doors flying off into space like Frisbees. Flames licked up from the undercarriage and instantly consumed the Cherokee, turning it into a brilliant yellow fireball.

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G)

“About Cal…” I said. “He’s sort of out of commission.”
“Used to be you destroyed my cars,” Ranger said.
“Yeah, those were the good old days.”

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H)

The side doors to the van slid open and a man in mask and overalls got out. We stared at each other for a moment, and then he hefted a rocket launcher to his shoulder. There was a flash of fire and a phnufff! And my truck blew up, its doors shooting off into space like Frisbees.
I was speechless. They’d blown up my truck! They’d turned it into a big yellow fireball.

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I)

I deliberately put the ‘vette into a skid that took out Delvina’s topiary column and positioned the car well into the yard. I fought the airbag and lurched out of the slightly bashed-in ‘vette.

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J)

I looked in my rear view mirror and saw Ranger pull in behind me. He got out of his car and into mine. Ranger didn’t smile a lot, but clearly he was amused.
“I don’t know how you do it,” Ranger said. In a matter of days, you’ve managed to turn a perfectly good piece-of-sh*t car into something so f*cked up it’s a work of art.”
“It’s a gift.”

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K)

“Gimme that rocket launcher.”
“Do you know how to work it?” I asked.
“What’s to know? It’s point and shoot, right? They give these suckers to pinheads who join the army. How hard could it be? Just prop this big boy up for me, and I’ll do the rest.”
I covered my ears and closed my eyes and phuunf! The bird was away. We all looked over the edge of the building and BANG. The rocket blew up my car.
“Must be something wrong with the sight,” Lula said.

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L)

I looked over at his car. Part of the rear quarter panel had been ripped away, and the back bumper lay on the ground. “It’s not so bad,” I said. “Probably you can still drive it.”
We both turned our attention to Big Blue. There wasn’t so much as a scratch on it.
“It’s a Buick,” I said, by way of apology. “It’s a loaner.”
“A Buick,” Morelli said. “Just like old times.”
When I was eighteen I’d sort of run over Morelli with a similar car.

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M)

“Hey,” Lula said, looking out the big plate glass front window, “check out the car that just stopped by Stephanie’s car. t’s got a big rabbit and a big bear in it. And the bear is driving.”
We all stared out the window.
“Uh-oh,” Lula said, “did that rabbit just throw something at Stephanie’s car?”
barooooom, the CR-V jumped several feet into the air and burst into flames.
“Guess it was a bomb,” Lula said.
Vinnie came running out of his office. “What was that?” He stopped and gaped at the fireball in front of his office.
“It’s just another one of Stephanie’s cars got blown up,” Lula said.“It got bombed by a big rabbit.”
“Don’t you hate when that happens,” Vinnie said.

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N)

“No!” Morelli said. “You can’t borrow my pickup. You’re death on cars.”
“I am not death on “Last time you used my car it got blown up! Remember that?”
“Well, if you’re going to hold that against me…”
“And what about your pickup? And your CRX? Blown up!”
Technically, the CRX caught fire.”
Morelli scrunched his eyes closed and smacked the heel of his hand against his forehead. “Unh!”

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O)

DeChooch threw the Cadillac into reverse and rammed the CR-V, bouncing it back several feet into the car behind. He pulled the wheel around and angled himself out, grazing the bumper of the car in front of him.
He did a U-turn and took off, leaving us in his dust.
Lula and Janice and I watched him hurtle down the street and then we turned our attention to the CR-V. It was crumpled up like an accordion.“Now this really makes me mad,” Lula said.“He made my shake get spilled, and I paid good money for that shake.”

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P)

“Somebody blew up Mama Macaroni,” my mother said. “That doesn’t bother me. She had it coming. What bothers me it that it was supposed to be you. It was your car.”
I’m being careful. And it’s not certain that it was a bomb. It could have been an accident.You know how it is with my cars. They catch on fire, and they explode.”
My mother made a strangled sound in her throat, and her eyes sort of glazed over. “That’s true,” she said. “Hideously true.”

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Bonus 1)

“Ranger give you a car with bomb sensors? The head of the CIA don’t even have a car with bomb sensors. I hear they give him a stick with a mirror on the end of it.”

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Bonus 2)

I rolled into the lot, parked, and got out to look at the damage. It wasn’t bad, all things considered. A line slicing through the paint. A ding on point of impact. Considering that I once had a car smushed by a garbage truck, this hardly counted.

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Tags: contest, Janet Evanovich

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