Talk about a bad first day. Major Holly Barker thought she was getting out of a mess when she left the army. She'd been sexually harassed by her superior, but the exigencies of the military legal system wound up wrecking her career. Orchid Beach seemed like the perfect place to start over. Though Chief Marley, an old family friend, was worried about some local increases in the drug trade, the Florida barrier island was not a crime mecca. As the new deputy police chief, Holly would be stepping on the toes of a few Orchid Beach P.D. regulars who were being overlooked for the job, but she would prove her worth in short order. After installing her trailer in Riverview, though, the bad news started to flood the Beach. The chief was found along the side of highway A1A with a bullet through the head, and his closest friend just had his skull blown apart with the chief's shotgun. Now, Holly is the acting chief in a town she hardly knows and with a police force that's full of animosity towards its newly minted leader. Just about the only consolation is that Holly has inherited Daisy, a Doberman who's about the best and most faithful friend a troubled gal could ask for; Daisy's a fierce defender of her master and she knows how to retrieve a beer on command.

Holly is a new character for Stuart Woods, and the author wastes no time getting readers into the thick of the mystery. This means that character takes a bit of a back seat to plotting in Orchid Beach, but with a mystery this fast-paced, the tradeoff is worthwhile. --Patrick O'Kelley


From Publishers Weekly
After a string of successes based on the escapades of the redoubtable Stone Barrington, Woods (Swimming to Catalina) shifts to a female protagonist in this police procedural, with mostly smooth and satisfying results. Woods's new heroine is Holly Barker, a 37-year-old MP supervisor whose army career comes to a halt when she loses a sexual harassment suit against her superior officer. A friend of her father's offers her a position as a deputy in the small Florida town of the title, but life becomes even more problematic when she gets there and finds that her benefactor is in a coma after having been shot. The body of his best friend is discovered next. The clues quickly lead to an exclusive community for the ultra-rich within Orchid Beach that bears a suspicious resemblance to a military installation, and the trail gets hotter when several corrupt Miami ex-cops turn up on the community's roster of security workers. Aided by local defense attorney Jackson Oxenhandler, Barker gathers a raft of evidence that she turns over to the FBI, which organizes a well-planned assault on the fortress. The climactic raid is somewhat lacking in suspense, but Woods compensates by introducing a charming romantic subplot between Holly and Jackson, and the story gets extra bite from Holly's intriguing relationship with an inherited canine named Daisy, the clairvoyant Doberman that belonged to her mentor. Agent, Anne Sibbald. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
YA-An entertaining suspense story. After losing a sexual-harassment lawsuit, Major Holly Barker, 37, retires from the military and accepts a job as assistant police chief in Orchid Beach, FL. Even before she gets her trailer unhitched and her uniform on, police chief Chet Marley and his friend Hank Doherty are brutally murdered. She doesn't know whom she can trust in her department, and the murders seem to be tied to the heavily secured and gated community of Palmetto Gardens. Holly adopts a Doberman pinscher (who comes to her rescue more than once) and becomes romantically involved with a local lawyer. The main characters are well drawn and expressive. Holly Barker is tough when she needs to be, and clever and persistent in following her hunches. With a little assistance, she finds the leak in her department and solves the murders.Patricia White-Williams, Kings Park Library, Fairfax County, VACopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Narrator Debra Monk has a knack for characterization, even with the superficial variety in detective thrillers such as Orchid Beach, in which adrenaline-pumping plot twists rule. In this thriller, the beautiful (natch), smart (double natch), intrepid (ditto) heroine, forcibly retired from the military, becomes police chief of the title Florida community, where she investigates the death of her predecessor with the help of her new lover, her old father and her Doberman. Monk gives every walk-on some subtle touch, some nuance of authenticity, some humanizing characteristic. Her Chief Holly Barker sounds appropriately strong and solid, like a former army officer, though feminine enough for credible love scenes. Here's a novel definitely more rewarding in the listen than in the read. Y.R. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Army Sergeant Holly Barker has just lost a sexual-harassment case against Colonel Bruno, her former boss. She knows her army career is over, but what next? Fortunately, her father, a soon-to-retire master sergeant, knows Chet Marley, the chief of police in Orchid Beach, Florida. Chet is looking for a new deputy chief. It sounds good to Holly, so she packs her gear and sets off for Florida. But when she arrives, she steps into big trouble. The night before, Chet Marley and his best friend were murdered. Shocked at such brutality in peaceful-looking Orchid Beach, Holly sets out to find the killer, only to run into an elaborate conspiracy plot. The only good things going for her are her newly acquired Doberman, Daisy; her newly acquired lover, county attorney Jackson Oxenhandler; and her tenaciousness in the face of danger. As usual, Woods dishes up plenty of high-octane action and plenty of unexpected twists. Even though the plot is hardly original and there are occasional patches of hackneyed writing, this one will still draw a sizable audience of Woods devotees and fans of action-adventure thrillers. Emily Melton


From Kirkus Reviews
Lawyer/cop/shamus/adventurer Stone Barrington chronicler Woods gives his swaggering hero and any Stone-weary readers a welcome breakthough the result is a so-so suspenser with a distaff paragon just as deadly and insubstantial as the male. What can you do with a female hero that you can't do with a man? She can get threatened and bullied by troglodyte guys; she can have a discreet romance that reminds you how vulnerable she is; she can get assaulted by a rapist; she can sue for sexual harassment. Woods obligingly works in every one of these episodes, starting with the lawsuit, which is doomed to failure because Major Holly Barker's harasser, a West Point grad, is in so tight with the Army brass that she jumps at the chance to resign her commission and take a job as Deputy Chief under her dad's old pal Chet Marley, of Florida's Orchid Beach. Before she can even introduce herself to the other (male) officers, though, the Chief is gunned down, presumably by the same person or persons who grabbed his shotgun, drove out to the house of his best friend, dog trainer Hank Doherty, and settled his hash too. The only survivor is Hank's wonder dog Daisy (imagine Lassie able to fetch Timmy a Heineken), a real bitch Holly is proud to take as a role model. And she'll need the toughest model she can get, because Woods, uncomfortable with the constraints of the whodunit formula, soon directs Holly's attention to outsized enemies both without (a gated community on the fringes of Orchid Beach that's exclusive, private, and armed to the teeth) and within (dark hints of a mole within Holly's department). Before many suns have set on Holly and her true love, and all those other girls'-only plot devices have kicked in, she'll be joining the FBI in a full-scale assault on an upscale Waco that leaves no Stone untopped. Middling for Woods's checkered output: not as glamorously nasty as L.A. Times (1993) or as fleet as Dead in the Water (1997), but not as dopey as this year's Swimming to Catalina either (p. 439). -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Stuart Woods wrote one of the most serious and accomplished crime novels of my generation, Chiefs, a southern novel spanning 40 years and the lives of three police chiefs who must try to solve a brutal racial murder. It is elegant, elegiac, and powerful. It also inspired a miniseries almost as good as the book itself.

If Woods's work since then has been less daring and innovative, he has become a reliable purveyor of glossy beach books that are as much fun as movie popcorn.

And Orchid Beach, the new one, is no exception.

Former Army Sergeant Holly Barker is a witness in an Army sexual-harrassment case in which the old-boys network triumphs as usual. Holly knows that her military career is virtually over. The old boys will see to it that she's never again promoted. She decides to take her dad's friend up on his offer of making her deputy chief of police in Orchid Beach, Florida.

My phrase "a reliable purveyor of glossy beach books" might sound slightly patronizing, but I don't mean it to be at all. This one is put together with as much art and skill as far more "serious" crime novels.

Woods is so smooth, so slick, he gives us a 40-page nonstop run that gets the novel going in high gear. Yes, Holly reaches Orchid Beach, but there finds that the chief who hired her is in a coma. Somebody shot him in the head the night before. She goes to talk to the chief's best friend — and finds him murdered. What kind of town is Orchid Beach? What has she gotten herself into? Are any of these seemingly innocent people to be believed?

Woods plays all hiscards.There's romance, danger (a couple of big-budget Bruce Willis-like action scenes), and a lot of tartly observed characters who live in gated communities away from the riffraff.

There's even a dog, a winsome Doberman named Daisy, with whom Holly identifies innordinately (they're both tough bitches, as she notes).

Raymond Chandler once wrote to Erle Stanley Gardner that the virtue of fast writing (such as Gardner practiced and Chandler loathed) was that the relentlessness of the storytelling sweeps you along so irresistibly that you never stop to question whether this or that plot point makes sense. All of Woods's recent books have that "irresistible" quality — you just can't stop reading them. But I doubt they're written quickly. Woods is a polished writer in every sense, and a lot of the sentences shine. And the back stories of the major characters are worked out in loving and fascinating detail.

If you want state-of-the-art crime entertainment, then you want Stuart Woods. He delivers the goods every time out.
— Ed Gorman, barnesandnoble.com

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Smart, attractive, and fiercely independent, Major Holly Barker, the army-brat daughter of a master sergeant, has been forced into early retirement at the age of thirty-seven as the result of a scandalous sexual harassment case. With the help of her dad she makes the move to civilian life, becoming deputy chief of police in Orchid Beach, Florida. But below the calm, sunny surface of this sleepy, well-to-do coastal island town lies a web of evil and deceit that escalates when a colleague and another associate are brutally gunned down. Alone, an outsider with no clues to go on, finding the killers won't be easy for Holly, and her seemingly low-key new career soon thrusts her into a dangerous game of cat and mouse. Surrounded by a staff of officers she neither knows nor trusts, Holly finds help in a most unexpected source - Daisy, a Doberman of exceptional intelligence and loyalty who quickly becomes her inseparable companion and protector. The closer she gets to unraveling the mystery of Orchid Beach, however, the nearer Holly comes to danger darker and more deadly than any she could ever have anticipated.

SYNOPSIS

There's no denying the power of Stuart Woods's Stone Barrington series, which has included knockout recent entries like Swimming To Catalina and Dead In The Water. But longtime Woods fans know that some of his best work can be in his nonseries novels, such as the masterful Chiefs and his new one, Orchid Beach. Army sergeant Holly Barker, fresh from an unsuccessful sexual-harrassment case, tries to make good in a new town, peaceful Orchid Beach, Florida. Peaceful, at least, until the day before she arrives, when the town's chief of police is brutally murdered.

FROM THE CRITICS

School Library Journal

YA-An entertaining suspense story. After losing a sexual-harassment lawsuit, Major Holly Barker, 37, retires from the military and accepts a job as assistant police chief in Orchid Beach, FL. Even before she gets her trailer unhitched and her uniform on, police chief Chet Marley and his friend Hank Doherty are brutally murdered. She doesn't know whom she can trust in her department, and the murders seem to be tied to the heavily secured and gated community of Palmetto Gardens. Holly adopts a Doberman pinscher (who comes to her rescue more than once) and becomes romantically involved with a local lawyer. The main characters are well drawn and expressive. Holly Barker is tough when she needs to be, and clever and persistent in following her hunches. With a little assistance, she finds the leak in her department and solves the murders.-Patricia White-Williams, Kings Park Library, Fairfax County, VA

Pam Lambert

Swimming in suspense. -- People

Kirkus Reviews

Lawyer/cop/shamus/adventurer Stone Barrington chronicler Woods gives his swaggering hero and any Stone-weary readers a welcome break—though the result is a so-so suspenser with a distaff paragon just as deadly and insubstantial as the male.

What can you do with a female hero that you can't do with a man? She can get threatened and bullied by troglodyte guys; she can have a discreet romance that reminds you how vulnerable she is; she can get assaulted by a rapist; she can sue for sexual harassment. Woods obligingly works in every one of these episodes, starting with the lawsuit, which is doomed to failure because Major Holly Barker's harasser, a West Point grad, is in so tight with the Army brass that she jumps at the chance to resign her commission and take a job as Deputy Chief under her dad's old pal Chet Marley, of Florida's Orchid Beach. Before she can even introduce herself to the other (male) officers, though, the Chief is gunned down, presumably by the same person or persons who grabbed his shotgun, drove out to the house of his best friend, dog trainer Hank Doherty, and settled his hash too. The only survivor is Hank's wonder dog Daisy (imagine Lassie able to fetch Timmy a Heineken), a real bitch Holly is proud to take as a role model. And she'll need the toughest model she can get, because Woods, uncomfortable with the constraints of the whodunit formula, soon directs Holly's attention to outsized enemies both without (a gated community on the fringes of Orchid Beach that's exclusive, private, and armed to the teeth) and within (dark hints of a mole within Holly's department). Before many suns have set on Holly and her true love, and all those other girls'-only plot devices have kicked in, she'll be joining the FBI in a full-scale assault on an upscale Waco that leaves no Stone untopped.