Four to Score (novel)
1998 Paperback cover
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| Author | Janet Evanovich |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Stephanie Plum |
| Genre | Crime |
| Published | June 15, 1998 St. Martin's Press |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 304 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 38468414 |
| 813/.54 21 | |
| LC Class | PS3555.V2126 F6 1998 |
| Preceded by | Three to Get Deadly |
| Followed by | High Five |
Four to Score is the fourth novel by Janet Evanovich featuring the bounty hunter Stephanie Plum. It was written in 1998.
Stephanie is infuriated to learn that her boss/cousin, Vinnie, has hired her arch-rival Joyce Barnhardt as another bounty hunter. Vinnie tells her to "be professional" and focus on tracking down her latest FTA: Maxine Nowicki, a waitress accused of stealing her ex-boyfriend's car. Stephanie interviews the boyfriend, Eddie Kuntz, who doesn't know exactly where Maxine is, but she is still in the Trenton area - she has been leaving him taunting messages in code. Eddie mentions that Maxine has some embarrassing love letters he once wrote to her, and hires Stephanie for an extra $1,000 to track Maxine down.
Stephanie knows nothing about codes, but one of her neighbors mentions that her nephew, Salvatore Sweet, has a knack for such things. "Sally" is an aspiring rock musician who made his big breakthrough performing in drag. Interviewing Maxine's mother and friend Margie, Stephanie gets suspicious; someone else has been visiting them and demanding Maxine's whereabouts, going so far as to scalp Mrs. Nowicki and cut off one of Margie's fingers.
With Sally's help, Stephanie decodes the message, which leads her to the second, and third, and so on. Maxine's trail takes Stephanie and her hangers-on - Sally, former-prostitute-turned-backup Lula, and even Stephanie's Grandma Mazur - all over Trenton, to Point Pleasant, and even to Atlantic City. Stephanie encounters Maxine several times, but never manages to capture her.
Alarmingly, someone is stalking Stephanie, leaving threatening notes warning her to stay away from the stalker's boyfriend. Stephanie at first suspects vice cop Joe Morelli's old flame from high school, Terry Gilman, now a "facilitator" for her Mafia uncle Vito, and still carrying a torch for Morelli. When the stalker throws a firebomb through Stephanie's bedroom window, Stephanie is thankfully not home, but her apartment is almost entirely destroyed. In fright, she takes her hamster, Rex, and goes to stay with Morelli at his house. After a couple of false starts, she and Morelli finally resume their intimate relationship.
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