Carnal Curiosity

February 3, 2014
Stone Barrington shows he’s one of the smoothest operators around, despite running into a few rough patches, in Edgar-winner Woods’s entertaining 29th novel featuring the New York City attorney (after Standup Guy). What starts as a business meeting for insurance adjuster Crane Hart ends in Stone’s bedroom, as so often happens with beautiful women in this bestselling series, but the tryst leads to a confrontation with Hart’s estranged husband, Don Dugan, who’s stalling on the divorce settlement. Stone handles the oversized Dugan with his usual panache, but his troubles with the couple are just beginning. When the guests at a ritzy private party are robbed, Stone recognizes one of the crooks as a Dugan henchman. A subsequent robbery gets even more personal, when someone is able to bypass Stone’s state-of-the-art security system in his Manhattan townhouse and steals valuable paintings. Stone needs to draw on all his talents to recover his artwork and lay a trap for highly elusive thieves. Agent: Anne Sibbald, Janklow & Nesbit.

May 26, 2014
For a while now, Broadway and film actor Roberts has brightened Woods’s adventures of lawyer-about-town Stone Barrington with a breezy narration that also carries more than a fair amount of charm. It’s almost magical the way his interpretation of Stone (who, as Woods frequently mentions, drives classic cars, dines regularly at the Four Seasons, and owns art worth millions) sound like a regular Joe. His best pal, Dino, the new NYPD chief of detectives, is even more down-to-earth—a tough guy whom Roberts voices with growly good humor. The president of the United States and First Lady, Stone’s close friends, are made to sound like a witty and droll couple. In this pleasantly meandering series addition, POTUS’s term is coming to an end and Ms. POTUS decides to throw her chapeaux into the ring. But that’s just one thread that hangs from Stone’s much too hasty reaction to the curiosity of the title. In any case, the versatile Roberts makes even the most extraneous portions of the novel seem vitally interesting. A Putnam hardcover.