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Avg. Rating: 3.44
Stone Barrington comes in from the cold
Stuart Woods has been writing suspense novels for about 25 years now, and has been writing Stone Barrington stories, I would guess, for about 10. Stone is a former NYPD homicide detective who had to retire after he got shot, and turned himself into a lawyer. He works for a prestigious law firm, in a sort of non-conventional fashion, basically taking all of the work the firm's regular lawyers don't want to handle. In this book, one of the partners sends Stone a client. The guy is apparently rich, and he wants a niece in London protected from her boyfriend, a shady character who's smuggling drugs. Stone's assignment is to go to London, and get the boyfriend arrested for something legitimate, thereby getting him out of the picture as far as the girl is concerned. Only nothing is what it seems, of course. The guy isn't the girl's uncle, the boyfriend isn't smuggling drugs, and basically everything turns out to be a lot more dangerous than Stone had planned. Of course the romantic entanglements get a bit complicated, and of course Stone has various problems with the local constabulary (who think he killed an ex-cop), and of course there are various spies and other individuals tripping through the story all over the place. This is the most complicated novel Stuart Woods has ever written, I think. It shows. There are several plot threads that aren't taken to any conclusion at the climax of the book, and the conclusion, while generally satisfying, is a bit mundane and unsuspenseful. There are several interesting characters you want to see again (including a British girl spy named Carpenter), but there are also developments in Stone's life (Arrington's back, and his girlfriend left him). This is, to be frank, an average Stuart Woods novel...not as suspenseful as some, but more complex than most. I would recommend it.
The Short Forever
"The Short Forever" is the eighth book in the Stone Barrington series by Stuart Woods. I found this novel to be the most complex of the Barrington books to date. Stone is hired by a client of Woodman&Weld, the law firm for whom Stone does certain miscellaneous jobs. The client's name is John Bartholomew who wants Stone to go to London to break up the relationship of his neice, Erica Burroughs, and her boyfriend, Lance Cabot who Bartholomew says is a cocaine smuggler. He asks Stone to bring Erica back to New York with him, and make sure Lance Cabot is sent to prison. When Stone gets to London, he learns that Erica Burroughs is not Bartholomew's neice. Lance Cabot is not a cocaine smuggler. He also learns that Bartholomew isn't whom he says he is, but is in fact a CIA operative working in London. No Stone Barrington novel would be complete without Stone's bedding a beautiful woman. This time he sleeps with former flame, Sarah Buckminster, who has moved back to England. He also meets with his true love, Arrington Calder, but once again their wires get crossed and she returns to the States before anything can happen. I found "The Short Forever" fast-paced and entertaining.
Much Ado about Nothing
This isn't a mystery novel. That is the first thing one should understand if one chooses to read this book. It would barely qualify as a procedural in my opinion. The problems are many. First, the main character isn't described at all untill 3/4 of the way into the book and then the only feature I was able to discover is that he has blond hair. Second, the main guy runs around a lot and has a lot of apparently great meals but that is all. He solves nothing, it is all solved for him. The only "murder" is solved in a way that would be kind of like playing a guessing game and at the end someone saying "oh it was number 13." without you even trying to guess. Needless to say, I was terribly dissapointed.
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