Great characters and good storylines.

Not as jaunty as the first one but still plenty of fun. There’s a whole lot of Grandma action in this one when a little might have gone further and it’s convenient that everyone in New Jersey either knows or is related to everyone else, but these are quibbles. I already have the next two in the series and I will get to them in the next six months or so.

Stephanie continues her new job as a bounty hunter, aligning with cop Morelli (when it suits him) and looking for a known 'bad boy" in her town.
This books continues with the humour from the first book - mostly due to her awkwardness as a bounty hunter, and also her hilarious grandmother. I can't help but compare it to Charley Davidson, but Stephanie is slightly more likeable and missing the supernatural element.
I will continue the series as I am enjoying the character development and the stories are quite fun!
3.5 stars

Now Stephanie's back, armed with attitude -- not to mention stun guns, defense sprays, killer flashlights, and her trusty .38, Stephanie is after a new bail jumper, Kenny Mancuso, a boy from Trenton's burg. He's fresh out of the army, suspiciously wealthy, and he's just shot his best friend.

With her bounty hunter pal Ranger stepping in occasionally to advise her, Stephanie staggers kneedeep in corpses and caskets as she traipses through back streets, dark alleys, and funeral parlors.

And nobody knows funeral parlors better than Stephanie's irrepressible Grandma Mazur, a lady whose favorite pastime is grabbing a front-row seat at a neighborhood wake. So Stephanie uses Grandma as a cover to follow leads, but loses control when Grandma warms to the action, packing a cool pistol. Much to the family's chagrin, Stephanie and Granny may soon have the elusive Kenny in their sights.

Fast-talking, slow-handed vice cop Joe Morelli joins in the case, since the prey happens to be his young cousin. And if the assignment calls for an automobile stakeout for two with the woman who puts his libido in overdrive, Morelli's not one to object.

Low on expertise but learning fast, high on resilience, and despite the help she gets from friends and relatives, Stephanie eventually must face the danger alone when embalmed body parts begin to arrive on her doorstep and she's targeted for a nasty death by the most loathsome adversary she's ever encountered. Another case like this and she'll be a real pro.

Two for the Dough is irresistible fun and powerful suspense entertainment from an acclaimed author who is already a national star.

This book was as wonderful, fun, action-packed, suspenseful, and enjoyable as the very first in the series. Stephanie and all the other characters have so much voice and they're hilarious. This series is amazing and I'm so glad I've chosen to read it.

SO FUNNY! Loved it! Stephanie is great — the way she interacts with others and how honest she is with herself. She’s just so real to me. The supporting characters are even more fun than they were in the first book, already so much stronger. I can hardly wait to see what happens next!

So Stephanie is still doing her bounty hunter gig and still making a hash of it. This is the second book in a 20 book series and it finds Stephanie looking for Kenny Mancuso (who turns out to be a total sociopath) and is distantly related to Joe Morelli. Joe and Stephanie go way back. All the way back to when he stole Steph's virginity at the Tasty Bakery where she worked. This happens right behind the eclairs on the floor and I will never look at those cream filled, chocolate covered pastries with the same light again.

To make things even more interesting, Spiro, Constantine Spiva the undertakers step-son has hired Stephanie to look for a bunch of caskets that have gone missing.

This is one of the more complicated books in this series since it finds Stephanie looking for too many people with too little time to find the one she needs to collect the bounty. Plus Grandma Mazur is helping Stephanie with this job. Oy! The job gets a little more complicated when we find out that this all has to do with guns and army surplus caskets missing from one of the bases.

Soon body parts from the funeral home are getting sent to Stephanie, Grandma gets attacked and things are going to heck in a hand-basket.

But never fear, everything will work out in the end.
There is an interesting and hilarious scene between Stephanie and Joe when they start steaming up the windows and seem to be getting ready to take their relationship to the next level. Be sure not to skim that scene. Your jaw will drop and you might lose a little drool imagining Joe in the buff.

A fun, light mystery/romance. Very little romance.

Hilarious

Oh my goodness she makes me laugh so hard! Currently trying to stifle my laughs while the husband sleep.. Love love these books

Stephanie Plum is at it again. This time she is on the hunt for Kenny Manusco. Kenny shot one of his best friends in the knee and then, he ends up dead. Kenny missed his court appearance for the knee shooting and Stephanie is going to hunt him down. For this case she has a little extra help, some she wants and some not so much. Some of the same characters from One for the Money are back in this second edition. My favorite by far though is Grandma Mazur. She plays quite a big role is this book.

I laughed out loud several times during this book. I'm sure people were looking at my strangely. I really hope that Grandma Mazur is going to keep making her appearances. She adds a great variety to Stephanie's cases. You never know what she is going to do.

So, I'm three books down for my Janet Evanovich challenge. My goal is to read everything she has ever written. She has written over 50 books so I guess this should take me about a year or more to complete.

Next up is Three to Get Deadly.

Evanovich is on a roll and her sequel to One for the Money, is Two for the Dough (guess what the third in the series is titled). It continues Stephanie’s career as a bounty hunter and is again populated with the same great characters. Joe Morelli, now back on the police force, is the old friend who keeps an eye on her, is probably in love with her, and can’t wait to check out her lingerie (the scene where she leaves him stranded in the middle of the street with no shorts on, then returns to give him back his .45 is a classic). Grandma Mazur is as loony as ever, still patrolling the viewings of funerals to compare handiwork of the funeral directors, (at one such — closed casket — she “accidentally” catches her sleeve on the handle and flings open the top so she can see how the funeral home handled the bullet holes). The bounty this time is Kenny Mansuro, Morelli’s cousin, who has stolen some special weaponry from the army, hidden in some caskets, then is double- crossed by one of his partners. In retaliation for the attention brings to himself, he begins sending body parts to Stephanie. You’ll never guess the part sent to her that she opens at home just before dinner. Grandma was most appreciative and really curious to see how the funeral parlor would handle this one.

So so book but ok enough to read.

Grandma Mazur continue to be the highlight of the book even more than Stephanie is and there are even some entertaining parts. Grandma Mazur should just be the MC

It still left a bad taste in my mouth because Stephanie relationship with Ranger and Morelli continue to go nowhere

A solid thriller mystery of my new favorite quirky New Jersey bounty-hunter. Although—this one left me scratching my head when it was over.

I was prepared for a mystery that the ending left me a little flat—because it's not really a mystery at all, but more of an action comedy thriller. Still, fun times. Though bearing is written in the 90s, so its race-relations can come off as dated.
4/5

Grandma Mazur almost steals the show!

Stephanie Plum is slowly learning the bounty hunter trade but she's got a long road to haul before she'll be ready to tackle the really mean dudes.

In the meantime, TWO FOR THE DOUGH opens with Stephanie looking to collar Kenny Mancuso, a bail jumper who's almost a family member, black sheep cousin to her erstwhile policeman boyfriend, Joe Morelli. When Mancuso's trail leads to Spiro Stiva's funeral parlour, Stephanie is surprised to learn that Stiva wants to hire her for his own case - finding 24 bargain basement caskets that have gone missing from a rental garage lock-up! When Stephanie discovers notes from Mancuso threatening her unless she starts to mind her own business and Stiva also wants to hire her as a $100 a day bodyguard to protect him from Mancuso as well, she knows the case runs much deeper than she first imagined.

For those that have read Stephanie Plum's debut in ONE FOR THE MONEY, it will come as no surprise to learn that the mystery is pretty thin gruel and the ultimate solution is easily plumbed (ouch!) by any attentive reader. The mystery, of course, is only the context in which Evanovich loving portrays the comedic antics of Stephanie Plum and Grandma Mazur, the frankly hilarious ethnic stereotypes of New York Italian family relationships, the off-the-wall one liners of Stephanie's long-suffering father, and the stumbling but burgeoning romantic relationship between Plum and Morelli.

Enjoyable lightweight reading easily dashed off in an afternoon on the beach! The thing that will probably slow you down is re-reading passages aloud to the people around you so you can explain what was making you laugh!

Paul Weiss