Paris Match

August 4, 2014
Edgar-winner Woods’s intriguing 31st Stone Barrington novel (after Cut and Thrust) takes the New York City attorney to Paris for the opening of his new hotel, l’Arrington. Stone leaves behind his love, Ann Keaton, to manage the campaign of the first-ever pregnant presidential candidate, their mutual friend, Kate Lee, the wife of exiting President Will Lee. In the City of Light, Stone finds himself the prey of a former enemy, making his sojourn there as terrifying an experience as it is a pleasurable wining-and-dining one. And Stone being Stone, he’s not without women for long. There’s Mirabelle Chance, a couture designer, and Stone’s on-and-off lady friend, Holly Barker, offering her very special personal touch as well as her procedural CIA support. As always, Woods’s knack for natural, nimble dialogue moves the plot along as Stone fights for his business interests, his reputation, and even his life. Agent: Anne Sibbald, Janklow & Nesbit.

September 15, 2014
Attorney/CIA consultant/hotelier Stone Barrington whiles away the time waiting to see whether his good friend, pregnant first lady Katharine Lee, will be elected president by dodging death threats from the same old enemies relocated to the City of Light. Stone is in Paris for the opening of l'Arrington, the latest in the chain of hotels memorializing his late wife. He's sorry to say goodbye to his most recent inamorata, Lee's deputy campaign director Ann Keaton, and he completely deflects the forthright advances of rapacious American ambassador Linda Flournoy. But there are other prospects in Paris, like dress designer Mirabelle Chance, whose only baggage is a father and brother who are both prefects of police, so naturally he succumbs to her. And to his sometime lover Holly Barker, whom CIA director Lance Cabot has sent to Paris just in case they run out of women there. But not to Katharine Lee, whose baby a scurrilous blogger accuses Stone of fathering even though they're just good friends. The requisite violence is supplied by Yevgeny Majorov, who accurately suspects Stone of having a hand in his brother Yuri's death when Yuri attempted to throw a lasso over Stone's Los Angeles flagship (Doing Hard Time, 2013). Sleeker and smoother than Yuri, Yevgeny is equally determined to seize control of Stone's latest hotel and additionally determined to avenge his brother's death. Matters come to a head when one of Stone and Mirabelle's trysts is interrupted by a masked gunman, but after Mirabelle shoots the intruder dead, there are surprisingly few complications. All this, and much less, is played out against a generic Paris that, apart from the title and the dust jacket illustration, could have been St. Petersburg, Prague or Pittsburgh.

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September 1, 2014
Stone Barrington traverses the Atlantic to attend the opening of the Hotel l'Arrington in Paris, only to find that he's once again being targeted by deadly assassins. It should be no surprise that as soon as Stone and his girlfriend, Ann, decide to take a break, Stone meets a lovely Frenchwoman who piques his interest. But Mirabelle has an overprotective police-prefect brother, Jacques, who is none too pleased to be summoned to her house after an armed intruder breaks in and is gunned down by the spirited Mirabelle. The CIA steps in to protect Stone, but it quickly becomes clear that a determined Russian Mob boss is after both Stone and his controlling shares in the Arrington hotels. With many pages spent on Stone's love life, the identity of his would-be assailant, and his purchase of a house in France, Woods' latest feels a bit like filler, but the cliffhanger ending promises the next Barrington installment will resolve a long-running story line. Die-hard fans of the series will want this, and the pages turn quickly enough.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)