Okay, I just read my first review of One For the Money, the first movie version of one of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels. Granted this particular review is more concerned with dragging Katherine Heigl over the coals than actually talking about the movie, but here’s the thing: The reviewer has obviously not read the book and even more obviously has no idea who Stephanie Plum is.

This is another example of what I think of as the romance-novels-don’t-exist phenomenon. Evanovich’s Plum novels have been bestsellers for years. Most of us in the romance community (and probably in the cozy mystery community as well) know them. I’ve read most of them, although I began to lose my enthusiasm for them when it became obvious that Evanovich wasn’t going to resolve the Stephanie/Morelli/Ranger triangle anytime soon (plus the characterization of Lula skates close enough to racist to make me uncomfortable). Evanovich may not be anywhere close to Nora in terms of sales, but she’s definitely up there.

Which makes it all the more annoying that this reviewer not only has never heard of the books but has no interest in them. The “terrible” dialogue he quotes sounds very much like Evanovich to me, and it also doesn’t sound all that awful. That’s the way Stephanie and Joe talk to each other, and I’d venture to guess it’s popular with Evanovich’s legions of fans. Stephanie and Joe’s interactions are typical examples of the banter you find in a lot of comic romances. I don’t contest the reviewer’s right to dislike it. But his tone of amused contempt bugs me.

Somehow I have a feeling that if this movie had been based on, say, a long-running series of thrillers by James Patterson or Michael Connelly, the reviewer would have acknowledged the books in the review. But Evanovich’s books don’t even get a nod.

I’m sorry to see that the studio didn’t show this movie to critics. That’s usually a sign that a movie is a stinker. It’s always seemed to me that Stephanie Plum was tailor-made for movies, or maybe even a television series (hey, it worked for Charlaine Harris). Now it looks like this may be the first and last Stephanie Plum movie.

But the fact that the movie may be lousy doesn’t release the reviewer from the responsibility to know that it grows out of a wildly popular series of novels. Yeah, it’s a comic mystery with a heavy romantic subplot. Deal with it.