Twisted Twenty-Six (Stephanie Plum, Band 26) - Hardcover

Evanovich, Janet

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399180192 ISBN 13: 9780399180194

Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2019

Inhaltsangabe

This isn't just another case. This is family.

How far will Stephanie Plum go to protect the one person who means the most to her? The stakes have never been higher in this #1 New York Times bestseller from Janet Evanovich.

Grandma Mazur has decided to get married again - this time to a local gangster named Jimmy Rosolli. If Stephanie has her doubts about this marriage, she doesn't have to worry for long, because the groom drops dead of a heart attack 45 minutes after saying, "I do."    

A sad day for Grandma Mazur turns into something far more dangerous when Jimmy's former "business partners" are convinced that his new widow is keeping the keys to a financial windfall all to herself. But the one thing these wise guys didn't count on was the widow's bounty hunter granddaughter, who'll do anything to save her.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Over the course of the last 25 years, Janet Evanovich has written a staggering 23 #1 New York Times bestsellers in the Stephanie Plum series. In addition to the Plum novels, Janet has co-written the New York Times bestselling series, Fox and O'Hare novels (including The Big Kahuna with Peter Evanovich), the Knight and Moon novels, the Lizzy and Diesel series, the Alexandra Barnaby novels, and coauthor of a graphic novel, Troublemaker, with her daughter, Alex.

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CHAPTER ONE

Some men enter a woman's life and screw it up forever. Jimmy Rosolli did this to my Grandma Mazur. Not forever, but for an afternoon last week when he married her in the casino at Atlantis and dropped dead forty-five minutes later.



So far as I know, the trip to the Bahamas was a last-minute decision, and the marriage was even more unplanned. I guess they were just a couple of wild-and-crazy seniors having a moment.



My name is Stephanie Plum. I'm five seven with shoulder-length brown hair that curls whether I want it to or not. I've inherited a good metabolism from my mother's Hungarian side of the family, so I can eat cheeseburgers and HŠagen-Dazs and still button my jeans. The hair and a bunch of rude hand gestures I get from my father's Italian ancestry.



I work for my cousin Vinnie as a bail bonds enforcement agent. It's a crappy job, but it's not as bad as my present job of escorting Grandma to Jimmy's viewing at Stiva's funeral home.



"What do you think of my outfit?" Grandma asked. "I got a black dress for the funeral, but it's not my best color, so I thought I'd lighten things up for the viewing. It's going to be a doozy. All the bigwigs from the mob and the K of C will be there."



Grandma was wearing a simple pale green dress that made her complexion look like she'd been embalmed right along with Jimmy. Grandma was in her mid-seventies and didn't look a day over ninety. She had the posture and energy of a twenty-year-old marine, but gravity had taken its toll. She carried slack skin over lean muscle and spindle bone and was in many respects the human version of a soup chicken. The day before her ill-fated trip with Jimmy Rosolli she'd decided to shake things up at the hair salon and had gone with a short punk cut and flame red hair. If you knew Grandma you wouldn't be surprised at this, and in fact, I thought it suited her.



"I saw the Queen of England wearing a dress just like this," Grandma said. "She had a hat on that matched the dress, but I couldn't find one of those."



Grandma came to live with my parents when Grandpa Mazur ate his last pork chop, sucked in the last drag on his Marlboro, and went to heaven to keep his eye on Jesus. It's been a bunch of years now. So far, my father hasn't killed Grandma-only because we took his guns away and we never leave sharp knives lying out in the open.



My parents live in Trenton, New Jersey, in a small two-story house in a pleasant lower middle-class neighborhood called the Burg. My mom has always been a homemaker. My dad is retired from the post office.



"It's too bad your mother is in bed with a bad back," Grandma said to me. "It's not every day that her stepfather is laid to rest."



"He was only her stepfather for forty-five minutes," I said.



"Still, this is an important occasion for me. I get to stand at the head of the casket and be the grieving widow. There's lots of women out there who would kill to be Jimmy's widow."



I had doubts about the source of my mother's back pain. She self-diagnosed on Google and was self-medicating with bourbon. I was pretty sure the pain had more to do with my grandmother being my mother's worst nightmare than with my mother having a potentially herniated disk.



"We better get a move on," Grandma said. "I don't want to be late. They said I could get a private viewing before they let all the other people in. You're lucky to come along with me on account of you get to go to the private viewing, too."



I was escorting Grandma because my mother had threatened to never again make another pineapple upside-down cake if I didn't stick to Grandma like glue. Then she sweetened the deal with the promise of lifetime unlimited laundry service, which included folding and ironing.





StivaÕs funeral home is no longer owned by Stiva. ItÕs changed hands several times and has been given a bunch of different names, but everyone still calls it StivaÕs. ItÕs a large white colonial-type house with black shutters, a wide front porch, a utilitarian brick addition in the rear, and garages behind the addition. I parked in the small lot designated vip parking and followed Grandma to the side door.



Grandma knows every inch of Stiva's by heart. Ladies of a certain age use Stiva's as a social center. Grandma and her girlfriends are there four nights out of seven, whether they know the deceased or not. Two of the remaining nights are reserved for bingo at the firehouse. I suppose it could be worse. I mean, it's not like they're frequenting strip clubs or crack houses.



Mervin Klack, the current owner and funeral director of Stiva's, met us at the door.



"Mrs. Rosolli," he said, "my sincere condolences."



Grandma turned to look behind her before remembering that she was Mrs. Rosolli.



"Thank you," Grandma said. "Where's he at? You got him in Slumber Room Number One, don't you?"



"Of course," Klack said. "Nothing but the best for Mr. Rosolli."



"And he's in the mahogany casket with the satin lining?"



"Yes," Klack said. "I think you'll be pleased when you see him. He's wearing the tie you picked out, and he looks very dapper."



Grandma hurried down the corridor, past the refreshment kitchen, to the foyer with the center hall table and massive floral display. The double doors that led to the front porch were closed, but I could hear noise from the crowd that had gathered on the other side.



Slumber Room Number One was the largest of the viewing rooms. It was reserved for lodge members and the occasional decapitation that was sure to draw a crowd. Grandma marched down the center aisle, past the rows of empty folding chairs, and went straight to the casket at the far end of the room. She looked at Jimmy and nodded her approval.



"Yep, he looks good, all right," she said. "He's got good color to his cheeks." She looked around, checking out the flowers. "We got a good amount of flowers, too. Jimmy was real popular."



Good amount couldn't begin to describe the flowers. They were overwhelming. They were crammed in everywhere. My nose was clogged with the scent of carnations, and my eyes were burning.



"Okay," Grandma said to Klack. "I'm satisfied. Open the doors and let's get started."



I heard the front doors bang open and the mourners surge forward. Three old ladies dressed in black were the first to charge down the center aisle. I recognized all three. They were Jimmy's sisters. Angie, Tootie, and Rose. Tootie was using a walker hooked up to a travel pack of oxygen, but she was keeping up with the other two. Jimmy's daughter was close behind. And Jimmy's two ex-wives were behind her.



Angie stopped at the casket and looked down at her brother. Her lips were pressed tight together. Her eyes were narrowed. "Stupid man," she said. She glared at Grandma. "Slut."



"I'm no slut," Grandma said. "I'm a married widow woman."



"You took advantage of my brother's weakness," Angie said. "He could never stay away from the women. And he always went after the young chickies."



Grandma perked up at being lumped in with the young chickies.



"He had no business getting married at his age," Rose said to Grandma. "And look at you, all dressed up like you're going to a party. Where's your respect? A decent widow woman would be in black."



"A lot you know," Grandma said. "The Queen of England has a dress just like this."



"I bet it cost you a pretty penny," Rose said. "No doubt bought with my brother's money."



"I bought it with my own...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2019
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0399180192
• ISBN 13: 9780399180194
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 320
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar