Worst Fears Realized - Hardcover

Woods, Stuart

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060191821 ISBN 13: 9780060191825

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1999

Synopsis

When the women in his life--including his date, his neighbor, and his secretary--start turning up dead, attorney-turned-investigator Stone Barrington joins forces with his friend Dino, an NYPD lieutenant, to help clear his name before it is too late. 100,000 first printing. Mystery Guild Main. Literary Guild & Doubleday Feat Alt.

About this title

About the Author

Stuart Woods was born in Manchester, Georgia, a small town in the American South. He was educated in the local schools and at the University of Georgia, where he graduated with a BA degree in 1959. He served in the United States Air Force, in which he says he "...flew a truck," as an enlisted man during the Berlin Wall crisis of 1961-62.

He devoted his early adult years to a career in advertising , as an award-winning writer for agencies in New York and London. It was while living in London in 1973 that he decided to pursue an ambition held since childhood, to write fiction. he moved to a flat in the stable yard of a castle in south County Galway, Ireland, and while working two days a week for a Dublin ad agency to support himself, began work on a novel. Shortly after beginning, he discovered sailing and , as he puts it, "Everything went to hell." The novel was put temporarily aside while he spent all his time, "...racing an eleven foot plywood dinghy against small children, losing regularly."

In the autumn of 1974, a friend invited him to help ferry a small yacht up the west coast of Ireland, and the bug bit even harder. Shortly thereafter, his grandfather died, leaving him "...just enough money to get into debt for a boat," and he immediately decided to go to the 1976 Observer Single-handed Transatlantic Race (OSTAR). He moved to a gamekeeper's cottage on a river above Cork Harbour and had a boat built at a nearby boatyard. He studied navigation and sailed on other people's boats every chance he got, then, after completing a 1300-mile qualifying voyage from the Azores to Ireland, he persuaded the Race Committee to accept him as an Irish entry.

He completed the race in good form, taking forty-five days, and in 1977 his memoir of the Irish period, Blue Water, Green Skipper was published in London and New York. While sporadically working on the novel, he completed another book, A Romantic's Guide to the Country Inns of Britain and Ireland, published in 1979.

Chiefs, Woods' long-awaited novel, was published in 1981 to wide critical and popular acclaim, garnering excellent reviews and winning the Edgar Allan Poe Award. Chiefs was filmed for television as a six-hour drama starring Charlton Heston. Following his success with that novel, Woods published a string of fiction that established him as one of the most popular writers in the world.

Orchid Beach is Stuart Woods' eighteenth novel. His previous books, Run Before the Wind (1983), Deep Lie (1986), Under the Lake (1987), White Cargo (1988), Grass Roots (1989), Palindrome and New York Dead (1989), Santa Fe Rules (1991), L.A. Times (1992), Dead Eyes (1993), Heat (1994), Imperfect Strangers and Choke (1995), Dirt (1996), Dead in the Water (1997) and Swimming to Catalina (1998) have been translated into Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Japanese, and Hebrew and there are millions of copies of his books in print around the world. Several of Stuart Woods' novels have been optioned for feature films and television movies.

Stuart Woods lives on the the Treasure Coast of Florida and Litchfield County, Connectict. He still flies his own plane, and sails.

Reviews

There's an adequate crime tale embedded somewhere among the excess of upscale home, fashion and dining commentary here. Woods's (Orchid Beach) new novel opens on a high note as series hero Stone BarringtonAattorney and ex-cop, he of the large wallet and larger libidoAsuffers a date from hell when his pickup, an attractive ADA, gets her throat cut while Stone is stepping out for Chinese food. The next night, Stone and a visitor, his former partner, NYPD Lt. Dino Bachetti, witness from Stone's window another woman getting her throat slashed. The murderer escapes, but the two men think they recognize him as a wife killer they put away 12 years ago. The problem is, Herbert Mitteldorfer is still in prison. Intrigue heightens as an old love reenters Stone's life, Mitteldorfer is paroled and the mysterious slasher attempts to kill Dino's wife. Dino's father-in-law, Eduardo Bianchi, a godfather-like philanthropist, ensure that Dino's wife and son are safe-guarded while he feeds Stone inside information. But Stone's romance isn't protected, and when the lawyer's girlfriend flees to England, he recklessly beds Bianchi's daughter, Dolce, even as the chase for the elusive killer heats up. This wan action is padded by much description of sumptuous meals (with lots of name brands), Stone's purchase of a luxury car and Connecticut retreat, and myriad scenes drawn from the society pagesAElaine of the famed Elaine's restaurant even turns in an extensive cameo. Woods still can write smart dialogue and knows how to pace, but it's hard to believe that the man who began his career with the dramatic, Edgar Award-winning Chiefs is tossing off inane stuff like this. Author tour; simultaneous audio and large-print editions. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Erratic Woods, whose 18 previous thrillers make up perhaps the spottiest backlist in the business, nose-dives in this plush, absurd slice of Serial Killer Lite. The morning after cop-turned-lawyer Stone Barrington (Swimming to Catalina, 1998, etc.) returns from getting takeout Chinese for Susan Bean, the comely ADA who picked him up at a party, to find her throat cut, he learns that his secretary, Alma Hodges, has been killed on the street outside his place. Next, Stone's neighbor, bank VP Miranda Hirsch, is slain while he and his ex-partner, Lt. Dino Bacchetti, alertly watch her vacuum her apartment in the nude, and Dino's wife Mary Ann barely escapes with her life from another lethal attack. Clearly, the boys decide, somebody they put away once is out to kill everybody close to them. How does Stone feel about all this mayhem? ``I'm extremely well,'' he tells painter Sarah Buckminster the next morning on her return from Europe, and why not? After all, his immediate future holds impulse cash purchases of an armored Mercedes and a terrific little cottage in Connecticut, not to mention some fabulous sex with Sarah, who's inspired this shopping spree. And when Sarah, worn down by the rigors of the stalked life in New York, returns to her native England, leaving Stone to help Dino deal with the stalker, Dino's sister-in-law, Mafia princess Dolce Bianchi, is waiting in the wings to take up the slack in Stone's love life. Meanwhile, the presumed perp, wife-killing accountant Herbert Mitteldorfer, has been released from prison just in time to slow his murderous campaign to an adagio while Stone catches up on the finer things in life and, aided by Dolce's flashing eyes, fends off his ex-girlfriend Arrington Carter's tearful confession that she wants to leave her movie-star husband and baby son and come back to him. Male fantasy at its most narcissistic, with just enough mystery to substitute for foreplay. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Best-selling author Woods (Dead in the Water) returns with his 19th novel and fifth Stone Barrington adventure. The Manhattan lawyer turned investigator faces an indictment for the murder of a woman he's just met. When other brutal murders quickly pile upAall women connected to him or his best friend, Dino Bacchetti of the 19th PrecinctAStone knows that one of a cop's worst fears has been realized: a con with a grudge is bent on vengeance. While trying to save the lives of the women he cares about, Stone struggles to track down the killer and head off a DA who's out to get him for murder. With sharply drawn characters, a plot that's satisfying to the last dirty deed, and a story that flows with the effortless grace attained only by a master, this seductive novel will have readers twitching with suspense. Highly recommended for all public libraries. [A Mystery Guild main selection and Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club featured alternate selection.]ARonnie H. Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucso.
-ARonnie H. Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

It's a cop's worst nightmare: a felon he or she sent to prison harbors a grudge, and when released, goes after the cop to extract revenge. That's exactly what happens to cop-turned-lawyer Stone Barrington when Herbert Mitteldorfer comes after Stone, his ex-partner, Dino Bacchetti, and their families and close friends. Somehow Mitteldorfer manages to disappear after every attack, and no one can find his hidey-hole or stop the victim list from growing longer and bloodier. Adding to Stone's problems are his romantic troubles--his longtime British girlfriend leaves in a huff, and the beautiful, sexy daughter of a Mafia don is panting to get him into bed. Woods' Stone Barrington series continues to offer solid escapist entertainment, combining the sophistication of a Nick and Nora Charles plot, the macho charm and tongue-in-cheek humor of a James Bond flick, the crisp dialogue of a Spenser mystery, and the slam-bang action of a Schwarzenegger film. Emily Melton

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060191821
• ISBN 13: 9780060191825
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 332