Reckless abandon

It had to happen eventually. Woods' two heroes, cop-turned-lawyer Stone Barrington and police chief Holly Barker, meet up to pursue a hit man in this new outing. Stone and Holly first crossed paths in Florida in Orchid Blues0 (2001), after her fiance was killed. Now, Holly is in New York, hot on the trail of Trini Rodriguez, who escaped from her clutches in Blood Orchid0 (2002). Trini is now under the protection of the FBI as a key witness in several cases, and they're not about to release him to Holly, who wants him tried in Florida for the murder of 12 people. Holly enlists Stone's help in tracking down Trini, and it should come as no surprise to Woods' fans that they soon end up in bed together. Trini continues to elude them, narrowly escaping every time they get close to him. Shady CIA operative Lance Cabot is back as well, and he wants Stone and Holly to sign on to help out the CIA on some sensitive cases. Most of the action in the novel involves chasing Trini, and while at times it's a tad implausible (a paid assassin locks the couple up and gives them a bottle of wine and a nice meal before attempting to kill them), it's never less than entertaining. Here's hoping Stone and Holly team up again soon. --Kristine Huntley Copyright 2004 Booklist

It's double the pleasure and double the fun as Woods brings series character Holly Barker, chief of the Orchid Beach, Fla., police department (of Orchid Blues, etc.), onstage to co-star with PI Stone Barrington (of Dirty Work, etc.) in his latest adventure. Holly's come to New York hot on the trail of Trini Rodriguez, a bad guy she thought she'd stabbed to death in an earlier adventure. He's currently wanted for (among other things) blowing up a dozen people by hiding bombs in the caskets of two of his earlier victims and detonating them at the funeral. But finding him won't be so simple: he's been placed in the FBI Witness Protection Program and is working with the Feds and the CIA to catch an Arab terrorist group trying to employ the Mafia in a money-laundering scheme. Shortly after Holly takes up residence in Stone's guest room, the two of them are hip deep in the dangerous case and likewise each other. They go at it so often it's hard to say what's going to kill Stone first: the Mafia, Arab terrorists or the athletic, all-night sex. Cross-pollinating all these characters from various books makes for some heavy-handed background exposition at times, but readers with no previous experience will still enjoy this amusing, full-throttle sex and crime romp. Stone's ex-partner and best pal, Dino Bachetti, head of the detective squad at the 19th precinct, sums up Stone's appeal, and that of the entire series, when he says of his friend: "Wherever you go, people drop dead, and women take off their underwear." That's it in a nutshell. (Apr.) Forecast: Woods' fans will flock to bookstores when they hear that their favorite series characters are doing some serious interacting in this installment. Perhaps sometime in the future, Woods will have Will Lee (of Capital Crimes, etc.) take time off as president of the United States in his own series to join Stone and Holly in a crime-fighting threesome. Now that would be interesting. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Police Chief Holly Barker of Orchid Island, FL, heads for Manhattan, but not, alas, to see popular Wood protagonist Stone Barrington. She's tracking a fugitive who soon starts tracking her. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Now that Stone Barrington, on a Florida trip, has helped nail the guy who killed Holly Barker's fiancÉ (Orchid Blues, 2001), Orchid Beach police chief Holly comes to the Big Apple to involve him in her hunt for a mobbed-up fugitive from her brand of justice. Even though he's a killer many times over, second-generation criminal Trini Rodriguez (Blood Orchid, 2002) can't be brought to book because he's an FBI informant who's repeatedly called on to testify against higher-ups presumably even worse than him. (It's typical of Woods's disinclination to sweat the small stuff that neither these higher-ups nor Trini's relation to them is ever spelled out; Holly has just learned to take it for granted that every time she's about to come down on him, the feds will whisk him off into protective custody first.) Now that she's burned her former friend, Miami Agent in Charge Harry Crisp, currently cooling his heels in American Samoa, Holly's ready to go after Trini big-time. But the hunt for this heinous felon--requiring a chase to Santa Fe, the intervention of Stone's ex-father-in-law Eduardo Bianchi, and the interference of feckless photographer Herbie Fisher (Dirty Work, 2003)--is as uninvolving as the cookie-cutter killer himself. The real action here is Holly's far more successful pursuit of Stone, who puts his acquaintance and her Doberman up in his guest room at a moment's notice and then immediately sets out to prove his former partner Lt. Dino Bachetti's maxim: "Wherever you go, people drop dead, and women take off their underwear." A skeletal thriller, evidently written on the back of a series of cocktail napkins, that's most notable, like Woods's other recent novels, as a pretext for bringing his stable of stock heroes and villains into different permutations with nary a new idea in sight. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

It had to happen eventually. Woods' two heroes, cop-turned-lawyer Stone Barrington and police chief Holly Barker, meet up to pursue a hit man in this new outing. Stone and Holly first crossed paths in Florida in Orchid Blues (2001), after her fiance was killed. Now, Holly is in New York, hot on the trail of Trini Rodriguez, who escaped from her clutches in Blood Orchid (2002). Trini is now under the protection of the FBI as a key witness in several cases, and they're not about to release him to Holly, who wants him tried in Florida for the murder of 12 people. Holly enlists Stone's help in tracking down Trini, and it should come as no surprise to Woods' fans that they soon end up in bed together. Trini continues to elude them, narrowly escaping every time they get close to him. Shady CIA operative Lance Cabot is back as well, and he wants Stone and Holly to sign on to help out the CIA on some sensitive cases. Most of the action in the novel involves chasing Trini, and while at times it's a tad implausible (a paid assassin locks the couple up and gives them a bottle of wine and a nice meal before attempting to kill them), it's never less than entertaining. Here's hoping Stone and Holly team up again soon. ((Reviewed March 15, 2004)) Copyright 2004 Booklist Reviews.

Police Chief Holly Barker of Orchid Island, FL, heads for Manhattan, but not, alas, to see popular Wood protagonist Stone Barrington. She's tracking a fugitive who soon starts tracking her. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

It's double the pleasure and double the fun as Woods brings series character Holly Barker, chief of the Orchid Beach, Fla., police department (of Orchid Blues, etc.), onstage to co-star with PI Stone Barrington (of Dirty Work, etc.) in his latest adventure. Holly's come to New York hot on the trail of Trini Rodriguez, a bad guy she thought she'd stabbed to death in an earlier adventure. He's currently wanted for (among other things) blowing up a dozen people by hiding bombs in the caskets of two of his earlier victims and detonating them at the funeral. But finding him won't be so simple: he's been placed in the FBI Witness Protection Program and is working with the Feds and the CIA to catch an Arab terrorist group trying to employ the Mafia in a money-laundering scheme. Shortly after Holly takes up residence in Stone's guest room, the two of them are hip deep in the dangerous case and likewise each other. They go at it so often it's hard to say what's going to kill Stone first: the Mafia, Arab terrorists or the athletic, all-night sex. Cross-pollinating all these characters from various books makes for some heavy-handed background exposition at times, but readers with no previous experience will still enjoy this amusing, full-throttle sex and crime romp. Stone's ex-partner and best pal, Dino Bachetti, head of the detective squad at the 19th precinct, sums up Stone's appeal, and that of the entire series, when he says of his friend: "Wherever you go, people drop dead, and women take off their underwear." That's it in a nutshell. (Apr.) Forecast: Woods' fans will flock to bookstores when they hear that their favorite series characters are doing some serious interacting in this installment. Perhaps sometime in the future, Woods will have Will Lee (of Capital Crimes, etc.) take time off as president of the United States in his own series to join Stone and Holly in a crime-fighting threesome. Now that would be interesting. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.