“Dead in the Water” by Stuart Woods

Woods, Stuart. Dead in the Water (1997)   Harper Collins, 325 pages, $25.00 hardcover   ISBN 0 06 018368 3 Stone Barrington arrives in St. Marks, a Caribbean island nation, where he has chartered a yacht for 10 days of sailing. You can look at this site to know where to buy all the supplies […]

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“In the Last Analysis” by Amanda Cross

Cross, Amanda. In the Last Analysis (1964)  rpt. Avon Books, 176 pages, $5.50 paperback   ISBN 0-380-54510-1 Carolyn G. Heilbrun, the reality behind the pseudonym Amanda Cross, was a professor at Columbia University in New York City. In Cross’s Kate Fansler mysteries I hoped to find books with a bit more substance than many current

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“Dirt” by Stuart Woods

Woods, Stuart. Dirt (1996)   HarperCollins, 272 pages, $24.00 hardcover  ISBN 0 06 017666 0 When fax machines all over the country begin receiving exposés about ruthless New York gossip columnist Amanda Dart, she hires Stone Barrington to find out who’s giving her a dose of her own medicine. Barrington is a former policeman, now

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Amanda Cross: Introductory Notes

Feminist critic and scholar Carolyn G. Heilbrun was a tenured professor of literature at Columbia University in New York City. She published mystery novels featuring heroine Kate Fansler under the pseudonym Amanda Cross. I originally read In the Last Analysis, the first Kate Fansler novel, because I had frequently heard this series described as “literate

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“Santa Fe Rules” by Stuart Woods

Woods, Stuart. Santa Fe Rules (1992)   Harper Paperbacks, 332 pages, $5.99 paperback   ISBN 0 06 109089 1 After leaving his Santa Fe home one morning to travel to his Hollywood home and workplace, film producer Wolf Willett is stunned to read his own obituary in The New York Times. He, his wife, and

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“The Ax” by Donald E. Westlake

Westlake, Donald E. The Ax (1997)   Mysterious Press, 273 pages, $23.00 hardcover   ISBN 0 89296 587 8 Most of the serial killers we meet in modern fiction are tortured souls, abused as children or tormented by multiple personalities. But what if an otherwise ordinary man made a perfectly logical decision to become a

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“New York Dead” by Stuart Woods

Woods, Stuart. New York Dead (1991)   HarperPaperbacks, 325 pages, $5.99 paperback   ISBN 0-06-109080-8 Having read two other Stone Barrington novels (Dirt and Dead in the Water) previously, I decided to go back and be properly introduced to this character whom Stuart Woods can’t seem to let go. In New York Dead Stone Barrington

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“Smoke” by Donald E. Westlake

Westlake, Donald E. Smoke (1995)   Mysterious Press, 454 pages, $21.95  hardcover   ISBN 0-89296-543-7 Freddie Noon is a twice-convicted thief in New York City.  So when he’s caught by Dr. David Loomis and Dr. Peter Heimhocker stealing electronic equipment from their research facility, he decides that becoming their experimental subject is better than the

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“Run Before the Wind” by Stuart Woods

Woods, Stuart. Run Before the Wind (1983)   rpt. 1988; Avon, 310 pages, $6.50 paperback   ISBN 0 380 70507 9 In Run Before the Wind Stuart Woods picks up the Lee family from his first novel, Chiefs. Will Lee, the spoiled, restless son of politician Billy Lee and his wife Patricia who is just

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“Baby, Would I Lie?” by Donald E. Westlake

Westlake, Donald E. Baby, Would I Lie? (1994)   Mysterious Press 291 pages $19.95  hardcover   ISBN  0-89296-532-0 Singer Ray Jones has his own theater on traffic-jam strip in Branson, Missouri, new center of country-and-western music.  And Branson traffic is about to become even more congested than usual as reporters from everywhere pour in to

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