Seven Up A Stephanie Plum Novel

The streets of Trenton, New Jersey, never quite settle into quiet, especially when Stephanie Plum is on the case. This time, the call from her cousin Vinnie's bail bonds office sends her after Eddie DeChooch, a semi-retired mobster caught trafficking contraband cigarettes. What seems like a straightforward skip-trace quickly unravels into a thoroughly bizarre and dangerous hunt. Stephanie tracks DeChooch to his home, only to find him in a state of profound melancholy - and a bullet-riddled corpse in his shed, an elderly woman named Loretta Ricci. DeChooch, naturally, slips away like smoke, leaving Stephanie with a dead body and a whole new set of questions.

The chaos only escalates. Two unsavory Mafia types, Benny and Ziggy, begin to shadow Stephanie, making themselves disturbingly comfortable in her apartment, while her on-again, off-again boyfriend, police detective Joe Morelli, wants DeChooch for questioning about the shed's grim discovery. Adding to the confusion, Stephanie's friend Mooner is frantic because his roommate, Dougie Kruper, has vanished without a trace, and both Mooner and Dougie seem to have inadvertently tangled with DeChooch in something far more sinister than just cigarette smuggling.

At home, the usual Plum family pandemonium reaches new heights. Stephanie's "perfect" older sister, Valerie, makes a surprise return to Trenton, her two young daughters in tow, her seemingly idyllic California life shattered by a cheating husband. Valerie, adrift and desperate, proposes a series of increasingly outlandish schemes to regain control, from becoming a bounty hunter herself to exploring a lesbian lifestyle. Even Grandma Mazur, with her penchant for adventure, finds herself entangled, asking curious questions about DeChooch and the possibility of a new identity.

As Stephanie delves deeper, it becomes clear that DeChooch isn't just on the run; he's desperately searching for something. Through Connie Rosoli, Vinnie's office manager with surprising Mafia connections, the truly unbelievable truth emerges: DeChooch is searching for a human heart. It turns out that when DeChooch was in Richmond, the mobster he was dealing with, Louie DiStephano, died suddenly. DeChooch, misunderstanding instructions to bring Louie D's body back to Trenton, extracted and transported only the heart, which he has now lost. Louie's widow, Sophia, is demanding its return.

The hunt for the missing organ takes a perilous turn when DeChooch, in a desperate move, kidnaps Grandma Mazur, demanding the heart in exchange for her safe return. Stephanie, ever resourceful despite her often-questionable methods, manages to pull off a daring rescue, swapping a pig's heart from a butcher shop for her beloved, if slightly unhinged, grandmother. Amidst this madness, Morelli offers Stephanie a marriage proposal, a moment of potential stability in her whirlwind life, but even that feels complicated by the ever-present, enigmatic master bounty hunter, Ranger, who offers his help in exchange for "one night" with Stephanie - a proposition she certainly can't share with Morelli.

The stakes escalate with disappearances, threats, and break-ins, all pointing back to the bizarre quest for Louie D's missing heart and the broader, more dangerous implications of DeChooch's misadventure. Stephanie, with Lula by her side, navigates the treacherous landscape of Trenton's criminal underworld, her life a constant tightrope walk between her two formidable love interests, her chaotic family, and the relentless pursuit of justice, or at least, her bail jumpers.