Two for the Dough

Stephanie Plum, Book 2

By: Janet Evanovich

Narrated by: C. J. Critt

Length: 9 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is back, packing a whole lot of attitude. This time around, she's on the trail of Kenny Mancuso, a boy from the working-class burg of Trenton, New Jersey, who has just shot his best friend. Fresh out of the Army and suspiciously wealthy, Mancuso's also distantly related to Joe Morelli, a vice cop with questionable ethics, a libido in permanent overdrive, and a habit of horning in on Stephanie's investigations.

Jersey girl: listen to more in the Stephanie Plum series.

©1999 Janet Evanovich (P)2011 Simon & Schuster

Critic reviews

"The first must-read of the new year." ( Kirkus Reviews )

Not loving the narration

I won't try to retell the story here, only say that I've read all the current Stephanie Plum novels - the early ones several times each. This is my first time listening to them, however, and I really can only give the narrator an OK. She sounds too old and mature to be Stephanie; Ranger and Morelli sound more cheesy than hot; and worst of all to me, Grandma Mazur comes across as an elderly Italian man. I kept doing double-takes when I realized it was supposed to be Grandma talking. She sounded more like the Godfather to me.

I liked the story well enough to enjoy listening, but if it had been my first intro to them I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much. So I can only recommend these if you know you love the stories or you're pretty forgiving of narrators, I'm afraid.

Love the story - not so much CJ Critt

Where does Two for the Dough rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Love the sense of humor of the author, and love that it takes place in NJ (where I live).

What did you like best about this story?

The parts that make me laugh!

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The voice definitely doesn't sound like a 30 year old woman (as the main character is). I also don't like her heavy breaths at every pause. She talks very slow, but I have fixed that by listening to it at 1.25 speed. :-) At least the different voices in the story are discernible!

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Not necessarily. Personally, I have a hard time doing any one thing for hours on end.

Any additional comments?

I'm moving on to the third in the series. NOT HAPPY that the 5th and 6th books are not available! Come on Audible!

Light and fun bounty hunter story!

Two for the Dough is really typical of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. It is as much comedy as mystery. Narrator CJ Critt gets lots of complaints in reviews, but she seems to fit the material.

Two for the dough--fun and action-packed

Love grandma Mazur and Stephanie Plum.
CJ Critt is the perfect narrator.
I'll listen to more of this series!

Fun, easy listen

Two for the Dough is book two in the Stephanie Plum series. This book picks up shortly after book 1 left off. Stephanie is still getting the hang of the whole bounty hunter job and still pretty uncomfortable with weapons and take-downs. In this book, she added a stun gun to her growing arsenal. Now she has the 38 caliber revolver and defense spray from book one and a new stun gun. She still keeps her gun in the cookie jar most of the time though because she is scared of it.

In this book, Grandma Mazur got involved in the manhunt and right up in the drama. And Grandma is packing a 45!

This book was just as funny as book 1 and I found myself laughing out loud several times. Mostly from the interactions between Stephanie and her mother. Her mom is still wanting her to find a safe job and fine a nice young man to marry. Speaking of nice young men, Joe Morelli was working right alongside Stephanie for most of this book and although there was some attraction, we don't have much going on there yet. He has managed to get himself invited to several meals by Stephanie's mom and grandma.

There is pretty much non stop action and mystery up until the very end of the book, even though some of that action is nothing more than sitting in a car for hours on stakeouts.

I am really enjoying this series so far. It is really light and fun and an easy listen. I will continue with more of the series,

Narration: I struggled with the narrator this time around. The voice for Grandma Mazur was really bad. The narrator made her sound like a grumpy old man. There wasn't even an inkling of female sound in her Grandma Mazur voice. Usually it wouldn't be a problem for me to not like one of the side characters voices but in this book, Grandma Mazur had a really big part and was practically one of the main characters. I was close to DNF-ing because of it but I finally started to think Grandpa Mazur and pretend she was a man and it helped it to make the voice easier to accept. Outside of the awful Grandma voice, the narration was pretty good. I didn't have any other issues with the way the narrator read.

The story is overwhelmed by the narration

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

A different narrator

What did you like best about this story?

The plot is interesting and the characters slay me

How could the performance have been better?

The narrator didn't seem to understand that every sentence doesn't begin with the same inflection and volume. Nowhere did the speaker connect the meaning of the words with the emphasis and volume of the spoken language. It was difficult to listen to the repetition of enormous volume at the beginning of every sentence. Even when the character was awakening, I had to grit my teeth through the relentless excess energy of the narration..

What character would you cut from Two for the Dough?

None---the characters are all well-drawn.

2 for the Dough - Funny, funny, and funny

Janet Evanovich writes very funny stories. Thank you so much for the laughter. Thank you and keep me laughing......

Bad choice of narrator

Why they thought a 50 year old smoker would be a good voice to portray a 30-year old learning the ropes at her new job is beyond me. To make matters worse, there is no passion behind her read. Just flat and lifeless. I don't know if the story is good, as I couldn't take it and switched to another book. Heard so much raving about how funny and great the Plum books are that I am really disappointed, as this is my first. Be sure to find a clip to listen to first if you can.

Very Entertaining!

My review of Book 2 is essentially the same as Book 1.

It’s far from being a page-turner, but it’s so entertaining that I don’t care how plausible (or not) the plot turns out to be.

I like the humour and Stephanie’s acerbic sarcastic streak is terrific; I’m in it purely for the enjoyable distraction.

Not bad. . .

I have listened to all of the Stephanie Plum books that are narrated by Loreli King. She's a great narrator! I have been waiting for the unabridged version of the first few in this hilarious series and was intrigued by CJ Critt. It took some getting used to, but it wasn't bad. She doesn't have the variety and range of voices that King does, but I'll buy the next one.