Fresh Disasters

January 15, 2007
Smooth-talking New York lawyer Stone Barrington, along with his sidekick, NYPD detective Dino Bacchetti, get dragged into an impossible case in Stone's entertaining 13th outing (after Dark Harbor
). Stone's bosses at the high-class law firm of Woodman and Weld want him to sue major league Mafia don Carmine Dattila for beating up a character from earlier Stone adventures, the hapless Herbie Fisher. It's all pretty much good fun—the snappy repartee, hot sex, dinner at Elaine's, comedic Mafia hoodlums with names like Sammy Tools, Johnny Pop and Dattila the Hun—until the tale turns darker with the introduction of a psychotic sculptor, Devlin Daltry, who's the ex-boyfriend of Stone's current flame, Celia Cox, a tall, fabulously beautiful masseuse. Woods delivers few surprises, but there are plenty of laughs as the pages speed by. Series regulars and newcomers alike will be perfectly satisfied.

January 1, 2007
Woods' suave hero Stone Barrington takes on organized crime in his latest outing. Bumbling Herbie Fisher owes Mob boss Carmine Datilla serious money, but after Datilla's thugs beat him up, he decides to take Datilla to civil court and asks Stone to represent him. The cop-turned-lawyer wants nothing to do with the case, but he is strong-armed into taking it by the law firm for which he freelances. Herbie is every bit the nightmare client Stone feared he would be, and Datilla is so powerful Stone can't even find anyone gutsy enough to deliver the court summons to him. Stone does, however, find time for romance amid the chaos when he meets and quickly beds Celia, a tall and beautiful masseuse. But even this seemingly direct liaison is not without its complications. Stone is as slick as ever, yet readers may be a bit taken aback when a major development fails to elicit much of a response from him. With an unexpected and humorous conclusion, Woods' new novel will please readers looking for light escapist fare.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)