Metro Girl

Written by Janet Evanovich

Narrated by C. J. Critt

A spectacular novel, complete with high stakes, hot nights, murder and graft—not to mention car chases, car races, car explosions, and car—well, you get the idea

Alexandra Barnaby got the brains in her family. The little gray cells certainly bypassed Barney’s younger brother, Wild Bill. Now Bill’s missing, so Barney is dispatched to Florida in the middle of summer with the bugs and the heat and the bad-hair-day humidity. Barney’s thinking things can’t get too much worse as she makes the rounds of South Beach, unemployed and sunburned, following her brother’s trail of broken-hearted bimbos.

Too bad for Barney—she’s wrong about the getting worse part. Enter Sam Hooker. Somebody’s stolen his boat and the trail leads to—you guessed it—Wild Bill. Hooker decides to follow Barney and see if she can lead him to his boat.

In the world of Evanovich, Sam Hooker and Alexandra Barnaby, in their quest to reclaim what’s theirs, blast through Florida from Daytona straight on to Key West, exposing a plot to grab Cuban land and to lay waste the people involved. Cussing and tasteless sexual innuendo included.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Nov 2, 2004
• ISBN: 9780060818036

Janet Evanovich

Bestselling author Janet Evanovich is the winner of the New Jersey Romance Writers Golden Leaf Award and multiple Romantic Times awards, including Lifetime Achievement. She is also a long-standing member of RWA.

Reviews for Metro Girl

[dadbrazelton · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Laugh out loud funny in a few places. Preposterous story line. Could have used one more page to more fully bring everything together.

[anglersrest_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My first Evanovich book outside of the wonderful Stephanie Plum series. I wasn't sure that I would like this, I like Plum too much, but this was just as good, wacky & very funny in places. Here we follow the life, misfortune and determination of Alexandra Barnaby, whose brother has disappeared, along with a boat that he doesn't own. His flat has been turned over, not once but twice. Barnaby is determined to find & protect her little brother. She meets Hooker, who is perhaps as full on as Morelli & Ranger. I look forward to meeting the characters again next time.

[lareinak_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I like this series better then the Stephanie Plum series.

[celticstar · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The first Janet Evanovich book I've read.Really enjoyed it.

[nx74defiant · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Alex "Barney" grew up with a mechanic father. She learned to work on cars and became really great with engines. She did some stock car racing, crashing more than she won.Searching for her brother she hooks up with Sam Hooker a very successful NASCAR driver.They have a wild and crazy adventure tracking down her brother.

[raizel_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fun read with boats, Miami and Key West, a new heroine whose instincts are good, and a bit of Cuban history. Apparently it's the first book in a series.

[starknits_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

funny and fast and silly. A good quick fast read

[taceymullen · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

New characters from Evanovich are fun and flirty. Action is well-paced, as usual for her novels. This is one of those books you read in the same way you eat popcorn, yummy handful after handful until it's all gone!

[ds_61_12 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Alexandra Barnaby has to save her brother "Wild Bill". She has done it before, but this time he is in a lot of trouble, even by his standards. She gets help from Nascar-guy Sam Hooker who wants his boat back and maybe just a bit extra. On their travels they encounter Cuban gold, cigars, violence and a very creepy relic of the Cuban missile crisis.Good, uncomplicated read.

[mnm123_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I love Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. This book has some similarities but is still a very entertaining book. I found myself laughing out loud a few times and was carried along by believable characters into situations very believable.

[adriel_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A different character than her Stephanie Plumb series, this book takes you on a wild and fun ride through mystery and action as a drug cartel seeks a nuclear weapon underwater outside of Cuba. Our heroine and her quirky friends, almost accidentally, stay one step ahead of the bad guys the whole way.

[preston.kringle · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Funny with adventure and a main character that is easy to get involved with. Can't wait to read the next in the series!

[kace_12 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I love Janet Evonovich, and will always read whatever she writes....well, not the early romance one, but current things I will. But the Metro Girl read like a mixture of contrived effort, and ugly step child to the plum series. It was alright to read, I finished it, but it didn't leave me with the good feeling of a book well read at the end, and I was disappointed.

[msbeautiful · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Couldn't get into it

[tipsister · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Metro Girl is a fun, quick read that I really did enjoy. Metro Girl introduces us to Alex “Barney” Barnaby, the daughter of a mechanic who knows her way around an engine. She heads to Miami when her brother disappears and she’s determined to find him. During her search, she meets Sam Hooker, a NASCAR driver who sets his sights on Alex. The two get mixed up with interesting characters and head off into dangerous situations on their search. If you are familiar with Janet Evanovich’s writing, you’ll recognize the formula in the Metro Girl books, but they are fun and worth a read if you are looking for something quick and entertaining.

[lcrouch_9 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Funny, but not laugh-out-loud funny like Stephanie Plum

[oldbookswine · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A great new character with humor. Barney (Alex) Barnaby finds herself trying to save her brother from the bad guys and falls for Hooker, NASCAR driver in the process. Could be less cute.

[miyurose_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This was sort of 'Stephanie Plum-lite', right down to the tomboyish main character (Barney), obviously forward love interest ('Nascar Guy' Sam), and crazy sidekicks (gay best friend and Cuban cigar rollers). And I think that’s why I didn’t love it. While you expect a certain voice and style in a Janet Evanovich book, this was a little too copycat for my tastes. Though I confess that I did like Sam, who was what you would get if Ranger and Morelli had a baby. I’ll probably read the second one if I feel like something light I can read in a day, but it won’t be something I’ll rush to get to.

[tamihindes · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Classic Evanovich! I guess part of why I love Evanovich books is because she writes in a formula style and I know what to expect. I have read all of the Stephanie Plum books and this one follows the same pattern. Girl gets sucked into a mystery/situation that she is unable to handle, but she tries by bumbling along. Then there is the hot guy who thinks about sex a lot. In this case it's Sam Hooker, a NASCAR driver who is also inept at solving the problem, but he's along for the ride so to speak. Plus there is a fat tough woman - in this book it's Rosa, a cuban immigrant. And then you have to have some odd-ball character - in this case it's Judey - the gay guy and his dog Brian. Much like her other books, Barney bumbles and stumbles along, gets in trouble, gets out, gets in a bind and the hot guy rescues her at the last minute and in the end, everyone gets together and hangs out. It was a fun read. I enjoyed the fact that Hooker is kind of a wus and not all tough and macho. I chuckled through the book because Evanovich has a flair for over-stating the obvious in such a way that I find it funny. I highly recommend this book. It's more like some of the early Stephanie Plum books.

[bluesalamanders · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was funny - I find most of Evanovich's books laugh-out-loud funny. Definitely light reading. Barney, the main character, reminded me of a less ditzy version of Stephanie Plum, and Hooker was very like Morelli. Except for the way he kept talking about himself in the third person, which I found vaguely creepy, possibly because the only character in the Plum books who did that was a psychotic killer who also had a dorky nickname for himself.

[kariannalysis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Drivers, start your engines, Alex “Barney” Barnaby, queen of the track is on a mission. Sister of the year award goes to the Baltimore woman. She is such a great sister that when her brother Bill calls her late one night and hangs up after a woman screams, she jumps on a plane to go save his butt. Bill lives in hot, muggy Florida and it doesn’t tell Alex long to figure out Bill is in some big trouble. But luckily, Barney isn’t alone on her mystery solving trip. She is assisted by NASCAR guy, Sam Hooker who doesn’t quite know that while Barney holds an office job, engines are her thing.Little do they know, once they embark on this “save Wild Bill” mission, do they know they are dealing with some hardcore Cubans, a major bomb that could take out hundreds of thousands of people and more gold than a jewelry store. This novel is action packed, funny and extremely empowering to women. Wouldn’t expect less from Janet Evanovich.I have had this book on my shelf for the past couple of years. I also have the sequel, Motor Mouth. I am definitely disappointed in myself for not picking these up earlier.I have come to love Janet Evanovich through the Stephanie Plum series and if I read this book without knowing the author, I probably could have told you by the end, Evanovich had the pen. It reminded me a lot of Plum, the characters, the drama and of course, the writing. Normally I think that similarities in different series’ by the same author would probably bother me, but this one definitely didn’t. I loved the Plum series, so similarities are more than welcome.This book was a page turner, filled with drama from the first phone call. Of course, there’s a bit of a love story intertwined, it’s not a Nicholas Sparks love story, but it is definitely love, in a “let me drive your NASCAR car” kind of way. I am uber excited to read Motor Mouth now.Oh, and I love the premise for the title. It’s not something you understand until the end, but I have to share this. We have all heard of a metro sexual, a guy who grooms more than women, tans, dresses to the nines, spends more money on hair product than a salon, but definitely likes the ladies. Barney, well she’s the opposite. She knows more about engines than most men, she drives cars and kicks major butt, all while wearing a pink mini skirt.I give Metro Girl 4 bookmarks.

[darla_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The trouble starts when Alexandra Barnaby, aka Barney, gets a phone call from her brother in Florida saying he's going to be out of touch for a while, that's abruptly cut off after a woman's scream. So naturally, she takes off for Florida to rescue him.Once she gets there, she runs into NASCAR driver Sam Hooker, aka NASCAR Guy, whose boat is missing, presumably taken by Barney's brother.They join forces to find the brother and the boat, NASCAR Guy flirting outrageously with Barney all the way. We run into the usual sidekicks, a shipwreck with missing gold, and a bit of international intrigue and danger.There are some laughs, as you'd expect from Evanovich, but quite a lot of the book is dated or doesn't quite ring true, from the Cuban Missile Crisis-related plot to the name of NASCAR Guy's boat, The Happy Hooker, to Barney's improbable wardrobe.When Metro Girl first came out, there was a lot of buzz about it, and the thing I remember most is that people were really irritated over the constant repetition of "NASCAR Guy." At the time, I was skeptical, and thought that was a really petty complaint, but I have to say, I see what they meant.

[madamejeanie · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ilove the Plum novels, but having sampled one of the books in her otherseries and found it definitely lacking, I wasn't anxious to waste moneyon an Evanovich book that didn't feature Stephanie and her dysfunctionalgroup of friends.This book was delightful, though. It introduced a whole new crop ofoddballs, starring Barney Barnaby and her NASCAR guy buddy. The plotwas shallow, as it usually is in a Plum novel, but well written and thecharacters were interesting and funny enough to keep me reading. It wasa fun and very easy read and I enjoyed it completely. Barney heads fromBaltimore down to Miami looking for her brother, Wild Bill, who hasdropped off the face of the earth after a middle of the night phone callto his sister that ended with a woman's scream. It involvespoliticians, federal agents, Cuban nationals, blockade running, sunkentreasure, wrongful imprisonment, chemical warfare, kidnapping,explosions, murder, mayhem.......oh yeah, and sex. How could it lose? LOLI give it a 4.5

[sluce_6 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Did not like.

[littleboris · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very silly, fun story - completely unbelievable, but entertaining

[arsmith_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Oh my god! I can’t stand this kind of material. I can’t believe so many women (and men) read this kind of *stuff*. This is full of clichés about women and men. It reinforces stereotypes about gender and power. It is belittling and patronizing. It masquerades as “modern” due to its female lead, but is really a Trojan horse that sucks out the confidence and power of women who eat it up. It is listed as mystery/romance, but it’s more like chick lit with a dash of fake mystery. This is like a book version of a sit-com. It rotted my brain. I had to watch some PBS to snap out of it.

[juliefauble · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not as good as the Stephanie Plum series, but still a light, funny, entertaining read.

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Somewhat different and somewhat the same as others of hers, it has a fiesty female lead caught up in a situation she really has no control over with a guy in tow who insists that she needs help and she ends up rescuing at least once. Fun and laugh-out-loud.

[futurebestseller · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this new series. Alex is in the 'Stephanie Plum Sisterhood'. Trouble just seems to find her. Hooker doesn't help either. What I love the most is that he is so laid back that he just goes with the flow.

[sunshinejenn03 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Campy and fun.