Book 53: Visions of Sugar Plums

Visions of Sugar Plums
Janet Evanovich

Though there's a mystery at the heart of this Stephanie Plum adventure, its clear throughout that Visions of Sugar Plums is intended to flesh out the world of this intrepid bounty hunter a bit. Unfortunately, though there is much fun to be had in this short novella, Evanovich is unable to straddle the line between fresh, interesting ideas and utter absurdity. This book reads throughout as the woefully unfulfilled promise of what it could have (should have?) been. The boundaries of credibility are stretched even for Evanovich's awkward and lovably odd Trenton landscape. Oddly enough, given recent problems of predictable plots and recycled series cliches, Visions of Sugar Plums is frustrating largely because it ignores much of what makes the Plum series so likeable in the first place. Evanovich tries too desperately to integrate Diesel into Stephanie's veritable parade of love interests; the characters have almost no chemistry and the preoccupation with another man is reckless given Stephanie's reconciliation with Joe at the end of Hard Eight. The novella turns in a worthy performance from former FTA and roommate Randy Briggs, but though he is sharp and true to form he cannot save the story. I believe this book would have been an excellent short addition to the Plum canon if it did not contain a mystery at all- developments with Valerie are relevant to the story arc of the series as a whole and the glimpse of a Plum family Christmas is precisely what loyal readers would expect. The book does well when it ignores the mystery at hand- often for unexcusably long sections, considering the book believes itself to be a mystery- and the FTA plot would be best discarded. Not only is it an unwelcome distraction from the thematic matter at hand, it is utterly absurd. Evanovich's Trenton already has a semi-mystical being in Ranger, who can mysteriously unlock doors and who moves silently unseen through all sorts of booby traps; she does not need the unnecessarily supernatural Diesel or the grand-scale superhero plot she attempts to develop. Combine numerous unnecessary elements with sluggish writing, ridiculous and predictable nods to the Christmas season (Stephanie puts off shopping? Scandalous and unexpected! And an FTA named Sandy Claws? Creative!), and a mystery so transparent that no reader will be surprised by its outcome, and what you have is Visions of Sugar Plums, a barely passable attempt at an alternate look at Stephanie Plum that would benefit from some of her characteristic humor and, yes, some of her more useful and interesting cliches.

Grade: C+