Cold Paradise (Stone Barrington Series #7) »

With several successful mystery series going at once -- the most popular featuring jet-setting cop-turned-lawyer Stone Barrington -- Stuart Woods more than manages to keep focused on a bestselling streak that shows no signs of slowing down.

Cop-turned-lawyer Stone Barrington, he of street smarts, dry wit, and debonair charm, becomes reacquainted with a case he thought was buried years ago, and must settle romantic entanglements that haunt him still. Allison Manning, the beautiful and enigmatic woman Stone defended against a murder charge in Dead in the Water, mysteriously reappears to request his help with a set of problems she has never resolved, which involve millions of dollars. She fears, too, that somebody might be stalking her, but she's not sure who - or why. She knows of no one better than Stone, who has both the legal experience and the investigative instincts to guarantee her safety.

Stone is happy to enjoy a few days in Palm Beach - and to have left frigid New York and the tempestuous Dolce Bianchi behind - but before he can dig into this latest case, he comes face to face again with Arrington Calder, the one woman who still holds a key to his affections.

Stone and his partner, Dino, comb the glittering streets of Palm Beach and begin to suspect that more than one person might be after Allison: one so clever he manages never to show his face, but even more frightening, another man everybody has long forgotten. In a search that ranges from the boardrooms of Manhattan to the sumptuous villas that line the Gold Coast, Stone uncovers the sly and greedy plan to steal millions of dollars - and reveals the crafty killer behind it - in this electrifying thriller.

Publishers Weekly

In the seventh thriller featuring cop-turned-lawyer Stone Barrington and his old sidekick NYPD Lt. Dino Bacchetti, the prolific and urbane Woods is at the top of his consistently bestselling form. In the middle of a New York City blizzard, Thad Shames, a wealthy computer tycoon, offers Stone a small fortune and the opportunity to escape the arctic cold if he will fly to glitzy Palm Beach, Fla., and find a femme fatale Shames knows only as Liz. With the help of Callie Hodges, Shames's sensual young Girl Friday, Stone wastes little time finding Liz, but discovers she is really Allison Manning, a woman he saved from the gallows a few years back (Dead in the Water, 1997). Now known as Elizabeth Harding, she fears her first husband a murderer who Stone believed had been executed is alive and may be stalking her. Not to be deterred from wooing and wedding Liz, Shames asks Stone to protect her. Stone himself is besieged by women: first, the delectable Callie, then his old girlfriend Arrington Calder (L.A. Dead, 2000) and finally, Liz, who suggests a m nage trois with Callie. In the midst of these amorous adventures, Stone consults Dino back in New York, trying to ID a man who fits the stalker's description, and Dino flies in just in time to be involved in a shootout in a Worth Avenue restaurant. Loaded with perfumed sex, sleek jets and yachts, lavish homes, boutiques, gourmet cuisine, quirky twists and nonstop action, Woods's pulpy pedestrian plot is grand fun. Simultaneous audio. (Apr. 23) Forecast: As frothy as ever, but more carefully plotted than L.A. Dead, Woods's latest should scale the charts, given a hefty boost by the book clubs (Doubleday and Mystery Guild main selections; BOMC and Literary Guild alternate selections), a national ad/promo campaign and a 15-city author tour. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.