This is book 20 of the "Stephanie Plum" series.

This note does not contain major spoilers for the book.

First dipping into a series at a late book is always a somewhat risky endeavor.

Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter, or rather a bail-bond enforcement agent, working in New York City. She's marginally competent and when she carries a gun usually omits the bullets, which in my book makes her severely stupid (threat of deadly force escalates the situation; not having the deadly force to back up the threat is stupid to suicidal if you're going to escalate the situation!).

The overall cast of character is a bit interesting. Lula, a mostly-ex whore who still dresses the part works with her (and drives her around) a lot. Her boyfriend Morelli is kind of cool, and even not too badly stereotyped. Her security-firm-owning operator other boyfriend "Ranger" is an ineresting extreme case. Of course the underlying assumption of monogamy makes things dumber than they have to be.

Stephanie, Morelli, Lula, the manager of the bond agency, and their families and friends, are NYC working class (or in some cases New Jersey), and that gives these books a very different feel than most of what I read. Not sure that's enough to keep the interest up. And the Giraffe on the loose was kind of over-the-top.

Reviews of this one suggest the author may have been riding on prior successes. Perhaps in this case I should read some of the earlier books before coming to a definite conclusion.