Barney is working as a spotter for NASCAR driver Sam Hooker. A graduate engineer, she is part of his crew, but on race day she observes the race and communicates information to him about the other drivers and track conditions. She and Sam were lovers (it’s Sam who calls her Motor Mouth), but when he slept with another woman, she cut him off.

Barney is the only woman among the spotters at the last race of the season. Among the men is Jefferson Davis Warner, nicknamed Gobbles, who spots for another driver. When his driver is involved in an accident, Gobbles is visibly shaken.

Sam comes in second; the winner is the driver of car 69. Gobbles is upset that the owner of Huevo Motor Sports, which owns car 69, is at the track. He believes he saw a crew member of Stiller, Sam’s company, run down by a thug working for Ray Huevo. He thinks that Ray Huevo has pointed him out.

After the race, Barney gets a call on her cell phone from Gobbles. He’s sneaked inside the hauler (a truck that carries the race cars) and can’t get out. He needs Barney’s and Sam’s help.

But the plot gets complicated when they get inside the hauler to rescue Gobbles where they find a dead body. And that’s just the first of their problems which involves breaking and entering, homicide, theft, destruction of property, physical assault, and a large St. Bernard named Beans.

Motor Mouth is the sequel to Metro Girl which introduced Barney and Sam, but it’s not necessary to have read the first to know what’s going on in the second. Actually, it’s sometimes difficult to tell exactly what is going on in the second. There is little if any resemblance between the standard cool operator hero/heroine of contemporary fiction and the characters in Motor Mouth. Insightful planning and intelligent strategy aren’t their strongest qualities. It isn’t very far from the truth to call these characters bunglers.

What Motor Mouth does have is the laugh-out-loud humor of a typical Janet Evanovich novel. It’s nearly impossible not to like the characters because they’re good-hearted and well-meaning if not the brightest bulbs in the race track lights. (It can’t be as difficult as I’d believed to earn an engineering degree.) Hooker is a good match for her. Except for the sleeping around part. And why doesn’t she insist on a blood test? (See prior comments on her intelligence.)

In other words, for maximum enjoyment you should read it for the laughs and fight the urge to yell at the characters, “How dumb can you be?” or “Call the cops already!” Familiarity with the NASCAR culture isn’t required. In fact, it might be a deterrent because it’s hard to believe that NASCAR as presented in Motor Mouth bears much resemblance to the real thing. Nevertheless, whatever its failings, the book’s a hoot and sure to appeal to a wide audience.

--Lesley Dunlap