Janet Evanovich is an American novelist, born in South River, New Jersey, in 1943, best known for her comic mysteries about Stephanie Plum, a former lingerie buyer from Trenton who becomes a bounty hunter after losing her job. The series began with “One for the Money” in 1994 and reaches its thirty-second novel in 2026.
The daughter of a machinist and a housewife, Evanovich was the first in her family to attend college, studying art at Douglass College, part of Rutgers University. She began writing in her thirties and spent ten years on manuscripts she could not sell before trying romance. Her second romance manuscript was bought for 2,000 dollars and published in 1987 as “Hero at Large” under the pen name Steffie Hall. She went on to write category romances for Bantam Loveswept under her own name.
After her twelfth romance she found she preferred writing action to love scenes, and took eighteen months to plan a new kind of book. Inspired by the Robert De Niro film “Midnight Run”, she made her heroine a bounty hunter and shadowed bond enforcement agents for research. “One for the Money” won the Crime Writers’ Association New Blood Dagger and the Dilys Award. “Hot Six” (2000) was her first number one on the New York Times bestseller list. A film of “One for the Money” starring Katherine Heigl was released in 2012.
Alongside the numbered Plum novels there are four “between the numbers” holiday books featuring the character Diesel, who went on to lead the Lizzy and Diesel series set in Salem, Massachusetts. Evanovich has written several series with co-authors: the Fox and O’Hare capers with Lee Goldberg, about an FBI agent paired with a con man; the Full series with Charlotte Hughes; and Knight and Moon with Phoef Sutton. The Barnaby and Hooker books, which began with “Metro Girl” (2004), continued as graphic novels.
Her newest series follows the recovery agent Gabriela Rose in “The Recovery Agent” (2022) and “The King’s Ransom” (2025). The next Stephanie Plum novel, “Split Second: Thirty-Two Switcheroo”, is due on 10 November 2026.
Publication Order of Stephanie Plum Books
One for the Money
1994
Two for the Dough
1996
Three to Get Deadly
1997
Four to Score
1998
High Five
1999
Hot Six
2000
Seven Up
2001
Hard Eight
2002
To the Nines
2003
Ten Big Ones
2004
Eleven on Top
2005
Twelve Sharp
2006
Lean Mean Thirteen
2007
Fearless Fourteen
2008
Finger Lickin’ Fifteen
2009
Sizzling Sixteen
2010
Smokin’ Seventeen
2011
Explosive Eighteen
2011
Notorious Nineteen
2012
Takedown Twenty
2013
Top Secret Twenty-One
2014
Tricky Twenty-Two
2015
Turbo Twenty-Three
2016
Hardcore Twenty-Four
2017
Look Alive Twenty-Five
2018
Twisted Twenty-Six
2019
Fortune and Glory: Tantalizing Twenty-Seven
2020
Game On: Tempting Twenty-Eight
2021
Going Rogue: Rise and Shine Twenty-Nine
2022
Dirty Thirty
2023
Now or Never: Thirty-One on the Run
2024
Split Second: Thirty-Two Switcheroo
2026
Publication Order of Stephanie Plum Between the Numbers Books
