Cut and Thrust

May 5, 2014
Bestseller Woods’s politically themed 30th Stone Barrington novel (after Carnal Curiosity) takes the debonair New York attorney to Los Angeles for the Democratic National Convention. Stone plays host at the Arrington, his posh Beverly Hills resort, to his current lover, Ann Keaton, who’s the deputy campaign manager for presidential candidate Katharine “Kate” Lee. When Kate, the wife of current President Will Lee, asks Stone to act as her intermediary at the convention, she has no idea just how big a role he will play. Happily, Stone proves as adept at political deal making as he is at defusing physical threats and character assassinations. Lending support are such pals as Ed Eagle, a member of New Mexico’s delegation, who’s still hunted by his deadly ex-wife, Barbara, and Stone’s old NYPD partner, Dino Bachetti, now chief of detectives. This installment goes down as smoothly as a glass of Knob Creek. Author tour. Agent: Anne Sibbald, Janklow & Nesbit.

June 15, 2014
First lady Katharine Rule Lee's quest for the Democratic nomination to succeed her husband unleashes all sorts of mostly unrelated complications for the mostly familiar cast.When you're tight with someone like New York attorney Stone Barrington (Carnal Curiosity, 2014, etc.), you're likely to brush up against lots of interesting people. Same thing when you share the president's bed. And her tenure as CIA director has made Kate enemies of her own. So it's no surprise that senators from New Mexico and Virginia are ready to fight her tooth and nail for the nomination and not much bigger a surprise when Secret Service agent Mervin Beam, head of the Los Angeles office, shows Stone a death threat against her he's received. Stone, in LA to keep Kate's deputy campaign manager, Ann Keaton, company during the convention, is on hand when his son, Peter, the rising star of Centurion Studios, signs Susannah Wilde for a pivotal character role in his new movie, angering Charlene Joiner, the president's ex-lover, who thought she had the part sewn up. Susannah's husband, Ed Eagle, a New Mexico delegate to the convention, is worried once again that his ex-wife, Barbara, now married to a London auto dealer, is gunning for him, and once again he's right. If Barbara can't kill Ed by hiring an Army veteran to blow up his private jet, she's prepared to launch a smear campaign that will accuse him of repeatedly plotting to kill her. And of course disaffected ex-CIA op Teddy Fay, now reborn as Peter's associate producer, Billy Burnett, is keeping an eye on Barbara just in case the wheels of justice don't grind fine enough.The political convention as family reunion, with lots of drama, no sustained plot and all the regulars acting pretty much as you'd expect.

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May 1, 2014
Politics and peril mix in the newest Stone Barrington outing, which features a crucial assist from another familiar Woods' hero, Santa Fe lawyer Ed Eagle. Stone and his sidekick, Dino, have traveled to Los Angeles, along with Kate Rule Lee, the First LadycumCIA director, who is seeking the presidential nomination on the Democratic ticket. Her competition includes the lascivious vice president and a senator from New Mexico, whom Ed is in town to support. Political maneuvering isn't the only thing Stone and his friends are facing: someone has sent a death threat via e-mail to the head of Kate's Secret Service detail, and Ed's murderous ex-wife, Barbara, is in town, as thirsty for Ed's blood as ever. Luckily, Stone has his own canny instincts to go on as well as a powerful ally in Billy Burnett, a former CIA operative and enemy of the state for whom Stone secured a pardon. There's more than enough action and intrigue to keep the pages turning in this exhilarating outing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)