Wicked Appetite

Title: Wicked Appetite

Author: Janet Evanovich

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Copyright Date: 2010

Print Date: September 2010

ISBN: 9780312652913

Pages: 313

Series: 1st in the Diesel & Tucker Series (related to the Stephanie Plum series)

Book Description (from the inside cover):

Seven Stones of Power.
No one knows when they were created
or by whom, each said to represent one
of the Seven Deadly Sins.

For centuries, treasure hunters have been eager to possess the stones, undeterred by their corrupting nature. The list is long — Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, to name a few. Now the Stones have found their way to Salem, Massachusetts, and so has Gerwulf Grimoire, adding himself to this rogues' gallery of power seekers. He's an uncommonly dangerous man, with a hunger for the forbidden, and a set of abilities that are way beyond ordinary. Abilities that he feels entitle him to possess anything he might desire.

That would include Elizabeth Tucker, the woman he needs to find the Stones. She's freshly transplanted from New York City to Boston's North Shore. With a new job as pastry chef at Dazzle's bakery and an old house inherited from her Aunt Ophelia, her life is pretty much on track ... until it's suddenly derailed by a guy named Diesel, a rude monkey, and a ninja cat.

Lizzy can handle the monkey and the cat. She's not sure about Diesel. He's offering up his own set of unusual talents, promising to protect her from Grimoire. The kind of protection that Lizzy suspects might involve guarding her body day and night.

The Seven Deadly Sins are pride, greed, lust, envy wrath, sloth and gluttony. That pretty much covers everything that is wicked. Diesel thinks it also pretty much covers everything that's fun. And Lizzy thinks Diesel and the Seven Deadly Sins cover everything her mother warned her about.

Comments:

So this is the first of the Deisel and Tuker series, but Deisel has been in all of the Between-the-Numbers Stephanie Plum books (or as I tend to think of them, the holiday Plum books). I didn't really know what to expect, though I had hopes of something entertaining. What I got was a light and fun (as usual) story filled with wild running around chasing bad guys. The usual Janet Evanovich book. Also filled with crazy characters, including Carl the monkey (also found in the Stephanie Plum books). And while, as the first in a new series, reading the Plum books isn't necessary, I kinda wish I had read them more recently... just to refresh my memory on Deisel and Carl's last appearances.

Regarding Lizzy Tucker... She's a good character, not nearly as prone to accidents as Stephanie Plum (which is good, I was glad too find she had her own personality). But while she may not be as accident prone, she still managed to get herself dragged into a mess of chaos — hence the fun story.

Now, I've read some other reviews of this book, and most seemed to find the book "so-so", too similar to the Plum books, and with too much Carl time. I might have agreed with the first, except I was looking for quick and light, and that's what I got... which means I found it satisfied my mood. As for the second, it was a spin-off, so I'm not surprised about the similarity. For third, I kinda have to agree. It would have been nice if, instead of having Carl join the scene, there was a new wacky animal character. But Carl seems to be the type of chracter that just butts in whenever he feels like it, so again, not surprised.