Evanovich sleuthed her way to the top

Janet Evanovich, best-selling author of nine crime/humor novels, is a late bloomer. At the age of 60, she is promoting her ninth book, "To the Nines," about Stephanie Plum, a bounty hunter.

Evanovich says she writes all morning, every morning, an eight-hour stint that begins at 5:30 a.m. in her New Hampshire home. "I do more thinking than writing," she said during a telephone interview from a book-tour stop in Austin, Texas. "It isn't like I sit down and the words magically appear on the paper."

Only 15 years ago, Evanovich, a stay-at-home mom, knew nothing about either writing or bounty hunters. "When I went to college, I majored in fine art, and I was a painter. Then I got married and I enjoyed making things. I liked sewing clothes and making chocolate-chip cookies. When the kids went to school, I decided painting was not where I wanted to go any more — and I had discovered I could be funny. Not necessarily at a party. But in my secret world, I could be an entertainer."

That's where writing came in. Having no writing skills and knowing no one who was a writer, Evanovich had "to learn basic English and learn how to write dialogue." But she did know about romance, so "I started writing little books for supermarkets. I got a ton of rejections. But I just kept at it. I had a very supportive family who kept saying 'You can do it!' It was 10 years before my first romance novel was published. Then I published 12 romance books in five years! But once the couple fell in love and went to bed together, I lost interest."

She yearned to write "a bigger book." The romance editors considered her their "token funny lady" and didn't think her humor would translate to crime. "But I liked to read action — the romantic adventure."

Evanovich watched TV's "Moonlighting," starring Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd, which inspired her to write her first Stephanie Plum novel. "I didn't want to do a private investigator. I was a fan of Sue Grafton and knew I couldn't be better than she is. I didn't want my character to be a cop.

"Then one night I watched the movie 'Midnight Run,' starring Charles Grodin and Robert De Niro — and it was about bounty hunting. I knew then that was a possibility for me because it required the ability to lie and play a role, something I could learn to do quickly. I found some cachet in the term 'bounty hunting.' I loved the whole idea of it. I had never held a gun, so I learned, and then I tried to figure out what kind of gun Stephanie would use."

She also went to the Yellow Pages and found bail bondsmen, who put her in touch with some bounty hunters. "Then I talked to them and tried to learn what they did.