Dirty Work

March 17, 2003
Woods's new mystery is as sleek and engaging as the upper-class lifestyle of its appealing hero, ex-cop–cum–lawyer–cum–private investigator Stone Barrington. Woods (Blood Orchid) rewards Stone (and readers) by bringing back the beautiful British intelligence agent, code-named Carpenter, who first appeared in The Short Forever, the preceding book in this series. But Carpenter brings Stone more than hot sex and clever dinner conversation—she inadvertently draws him into her life-and-death struggle with one of the world's most efficient and intelligent female assassins, La Biche. While on assignment for lawyer Stone, attempting to photograph an adulterous husband in flagrante delicto, a clumsy assistant gets into trouble and falls into the hands of the NYPD and British Intelligence. Stone's pal and ex-partner from his early days on the NYPD, detective Dino Bacchetti, aids in extricating the assistant, but the incriminating photographs soon involve both men in the hunt for La Biche, who is out to kill Carpenter and avenge an old wrong. Friend and foe alike feed outright lies to Stone and Dino as the chameleonic lady assassin piles body upon body. Woods writes in a dry, witty style that keeps all his characters on a likable keel. The amusing repartee between Stone and Dino is memorably funny. In the end, Stone supplies a surprising dose of morality, and the reader finds that there is more to the story than flesh, flash and derring-do. Author tour. (Apr.)FYI:Woods recently signed a new contract with Putnam to supply two more in this series as well as several other unspecified books over the next two years.

Inhabiting the voice of ex-cop Stone Barrington with ease, Tony Roberts moves smoothly from one amusingly stereotypical character to another with broad strokes. When he's not dining in fine restaurants or having extraordinary sex with exquisite women, Barrington is tracking a ruthless terrorist who changes identities as effortlessly as she changes clothes. He needs to stop her before she assassinates the lovely British spy who happens to be sharing his bed. A twist in the resolution turns this into a morality tale with an underlying message about colonialism. But overall this is funny, fast-paced, and a bit gory escapist fare, which Roberts delivers seamlessly in just the right tongue-in-cheek tone. E.S. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine