Well, our jobs may not be as flashy as Stephanie’s, but Janet Evanovich sure makes it seem exciting. Evanovich, author of 16 novels including the signature series of “Stephanie Plum,” the bounty hunter, is hitting the big screen. Evanovich has a large following of fans and can write in a masterful way, always keeping readers on the edge of their seats and wanting more. She has reached the best sellers list numerous times, so much in fact, that there is a scheduled release date of June 3, 2011 for her One For The Money.

According to Collateral Magazine, Evanovich began writing about a bounty hunter character after being inspired by the film “Midnight Run,” starring Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin. Evanovich stated that she saw the film in 1993 and got to thinking, “What if I wrote a book about an unemployed lingerie buyer who blackmails her cousin into giving her a job going after FTAs (failure to appear)?”

As quickly as Evanovich had this thought, she was on to writing instantly, creating her novel series about Stephanie Plum the bounty hunter. Now it has been over 18 years in the making and Evanovich states she doesn’t seek the help or advice of law enforcement, but occasionally may ask for an opinion or two.

The film, stated to release sometime in 2011, is called, “One for the Money,” starring Katherine Heigl as Stephanie Plum and John Leguizamo as Jimmy Alpha.

Although Evanovich has no part in the making of the film, she is hopeful, stating, “I’m happy the movie is finally getting made. It’ll be interesting to see how different (or similar) the movie’s take on the characters is. I have nothing to do with the movie, but was encouraged that Stephanie is being played by Katherine Heigl, who is a fan of the books.”

Recently, I was on vacation and there were three Janet Evanovich books on the bookshelf where we stayed. I thought that the perfect opportunity to find out what Stephanie Plum is all about. It only took me to page 3 of Three to Get Deadly to see how far fetched the story line would be; but entertaining just the same.

My first suprise was that Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter, rather than a bail bondsman. Not sure why this was such a surprise, people are constantly confusing me for a bounty hunter. I also found it interesting that although I was reading the third in the series, Stephanie had only been a bounty hunter for five months.

I think it was the background information about the bail industry that primarily ran counter to my experience.  For example, Stephanie tells us that bondsmen “loaned people money to post the bond.” As bondsmen, we don’t lend money at all. We charge a fee and put up a paper bond, which is a guarantee to the court that the defendant will show up for all required court dates. A bail bond is a “surety bond”.

The other part of the background that struck me is that Stephanie indicates that the bondsman charged 15% of the full bond amount as a fee to the client; as a bounty hunter she would make 10% of the bond amount if she brought back the “Failure to Appear” (known to me as a “skip“). This would indicate that the bondsman is still making money when the defendant doesn’t show up for court. Again, completely contrary to my experience. When some doesn’t show up for court and we hire a bounty hunter, we are loosing money. That’s why we bail out people we believe will show up for court.

Although I didn’t finish the book, it is always interesting to me to read something related to our industry. There are so many misconceptions about bail and bondsmen. I assume that fiction has to be the source. Of course, the reality is probably pretty boring by comparison. Plum fans, enjoy!

Photo credit: Lynn Holly