Hot Mahogany

July 28, 2008
Edgar-winner Woods's 15th Stone Barrington novel (after Shoot Him if He Runs
) finds the familiar cast of characters up to their usual antics: dining at Elaine's, drinking expensive liquor and having fantastic sex. Stone's pal CIA deputy director for operations, Lance Cabot, asks Stone to watch over his brother, Barton Cabot, who's recovering from injuries, amnesia chief among them, after being beaten and robbed. Barton, who builds and sells reproduction antiques, lives in Connecticut, as luck would have it, near a cottage Stone owns. The plot centers on a missing 18th-century mahogany secretary, which is worth in the neighborhood of $24 million, and the theft of hundreds of gold coins from the South Vietnamese government when Barton was commanding a regiment there during the Vietnam War. As always, Stone gets to bed several new beautiful women in the course of pursuing the case. Series fans will find all their expectations nicely fulfilled. Author tour.

Investigator Stone Barrington has it all: money, good looks, a law degree, and a friend like Dino Bacchetti, the perfect foil for Barrington as straight man. In HOT MAHOGANY, the sixteenth in the Barrington series, he also has a talented narrator. Film actor Tony Roberts has performed so many Barrington books it's hard to imagine anyone else reading them. Plus, he's so darn good at it. Roberts's cocky tone makes Barrington a fascinating character. This time he's investigating the sudden reappearance of the long-lost brother of his old friend Lance Cabot. The mystery deepens as Barrington learns the secret the man has carried since his Vietnam days and how a simple piece of furniture may be the key to it. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine