From Library Journal
City Attorney Stone Barrington is on the small island of St. Marks off the coast of Antigua for vacation. His live-in girlfriend is unable to join him. Since he is at loose ends, he attends the coroner's inquest into the death of Paul Manning, a famous mystery writer who was sailing across the Atlantic when, according to his wife, he died. She is arrested for murder because the island prosecutor has political ambitions of being the next prime minister, and a good murder case is just what he needs. Manning was heavily insured, and within a day or so, $15 million is paid to his estate and then transferred to a Cayman Island account. Barrington takes on Allison Manning's defense with the help of a local barrister. Best-selling author Woods (Dirt, LJ 9/15/96) knows how to entrance the reader with glitz, a good story, and lots of suspense. No one here is quite what he or she appears to be, and Barrington must use all of his legal abilities to save his client. This will be very popular and is for all libraries.-?Jo Ann Vicarel, Cleveland Heights-Univ. Heights P.L., OhioCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Stone Barrington, Manhattan ex-cop turned attorney/investigator, stumbles onto a murder investigation while on vacation in St. Marks and defends the beautiful woman accused of the crime. Tony Roberts's careful and diligent interpretation of Barrington culminates in a superb and stimulating performance. Barrington's persona is tough, street-wise and just vulnerable enough to be sexy. As the overly ambitious prosecuting Minister of Justice, Roberts applies a proper British accent combined with a condescending attitude. The glamorous and mysterious defendant is portrayed as controlled and aloof in the courtroom, yet smoldering and subtly manipulative in Barrington's arms. Roberts's acting expertise is equally applied to all Woods's characters, resulting in a riveting listening treat. B.J.P. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Millionaire author Paul Phillips Manning died on board his yacht while on a Caribbean cruise with his sexy young wife, Allison. She claims he had a heart attack, and due to the climate and distance from port, she was forced to dispose of the body at sea. Sir Winston Sutherland, the minister of justice on the tiny island of St. Marks, isn't buying it and charges her with homicide. The trial and the execution could both be completed within a week. Vacationing New York lawyer and investigator Stone Barrington comes to the damsel's aid and soon winds up in her bed. Now in his fourth appearance, the suave and priapic Barrington soon finds himself embroiled in a case in which nothing is as it seems, from Allison's story to Manning's death to the agenda of the Charles Laughton^-like Sir Winston Sutherland. This is a cleverly plotted, witty crime caper with a dash of sex, a likably roguish hero, and a surprising twist at the finish. Great for lightweight summer reading. Wes Lukowsky


From Kirkus Reviews
Woods bounces back from the doldrums of his last few formula thrillers in this tidy did-she-do-it puzzler, nicely stirred by Caribbean breezes. When the 45-foot yacht Expansive puts into the island paradise of St. Marks, the only thing missing is the skipper, mystery novelist Paul Manning, who, his wife tearfully tells the authorities, suffered a fatal heart attack while she watched helplessly from high atop a mast, and had to be buried at sea. The story's good enough for the coroner's inquest, but not for Sir Winston Sutherland, the ambitious Minister of Justice, who thinks a high-profile conviction might be just the thing to vault him into the aging Prime Minister's post. Luckily for Allison, she has just the credentials (blond hair, killer bod, boundless sexual stamina) to secure herself the premier legal representation on St. Marks: vacationing New York lawyer Stone Barrington (Dirt, 1996, etc.), whose appetite for adventure, etc., has been whetted by the unexpected absence of his live-in girlfriend Arrington Carter. It's a case that suits Woods's talent for streamlined, unnuanced narrative down to the shoreline. With no witnesses but Allison--now enjoying a cool $12 million payoff from Paul's insurance--and virtually no physical evidence showing how (or even whether) Paul met his death, Stone doesn't have to bother arguing the facts; all he has to do is orchestrate a massive p.r. campaign designed to impress on the government what a disaster a conviction would be for St. Marks's crucial tourist industry-- while trying to find some wiggle room in the island's draconian trial law, which pretty much assumes that the accused is guilty and the real crime would be keeping the jury past dinnertime. Trying to make this neat, utterly unsurprising, tale-- Woods's best since L.A. Times (1993)--last more than one sitting would be like staying up all night nursing a Godiva truffle. (Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection; $300,000 ad/promo) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
In Dead in the Water, Stone has barely arrived in St. Marks, a lovely Caribbean island nation, on a sailing vacation when something very strange happens: A beautiful young woman sails into the harbor, entirely alone on a large yacht. Before long she is under the intense scrutiny of local authorities in the very considerable person ofSir Winston Sutherland, the minister of Justice. The problem is, though she arrived alone, she had departed the other side of the Atlantic in the company of her husband, a well-known writer, who is no longer in evidence. Evidence is what fascinates Stone Barrington, and before many pages have been turned, he is all that stands between the apparently innocent Allison Manning and the patently evil intent of Sir Winston, whose motives are unclear. What is clear is that the St. Marks' system of justice bears little resemblance to the American courts to which Stone is accustomed and that his smallest error could prove fatal to his client.


Download Description
E-book Extra: 'We Are Very Different People": Stuart Woods on Stone Barrington. When beautiful Allison Manning arrives in St. Marks without her husband, she falls under the scrutiny of the notorious Minister of Justice Sir Winston Sutherland. Ex-cop attorney Stone Barrington spots Sutherland's strange motives, and must race to sort madness from murder -- before the storm of the century.


About the Author
Stuart Woods was born in Manchester, Georgia, a small town in the American South.He was educated in the local schools and at the University of Georgia, where he graduated with a BA degree in 1959.He served in the United States Air Force, in which he says he "...flew a truck," as an enlisted man during the Berlin Wall crisis of 1961-62. He devoted his early adult years to a career in advertising , as an award-winning writer for agencies in New York and London.It was while living in London in 1973 that he decided to pursue an ambition held since childhood, to write fiction.he moved to a flat in the stable yard of a castle in south County Galway, Ireland, and while working two days a week for a Dublin ad agency to support himself, began work on a novel.Shortly after beginning, he discovered sailing and , as he puts it, "Everything went to hell."The novel was put temporarily aside while he spent all his time, "...racing an eleven foot plywood dinghy against small children, losing regularly." In the autumn of 1974, a friend invited him to help ferry a small yacht up the west coast of Ireland, and the bug bit even harder.Shortly thereafter, his grandfather died, leaving him "...just enough money to get into debt for a boat," and he immediately decided to go to the 1976 Observer Single-handed Transatlantic Race (OSTAR).He moved to a gamekeeper's cottage on a river above Cork Harbour and had a boat built at a nearby boatyard.He studied navigation and sailed on other people's boats every chance he got, then, after completing a 1300-mile qualifying voyage from the Azores to Ireland, he persuaded the Race Committee to accept him as an Irish entry. He completed the race in good form, taking forty-five days, and in 1977 his memoir of the Irish period, Blue Water, Green Skipperwas published in London and New York.While sporadically working on the novel, he completed another book, A Romantic's Guide to the Country Inns of Britain and Ireland,published in 1979.Chiefs, Woods' long-awaited novel, was published in 1981 to wide critical and popular acclaim, garnering excellent reviews and winning the Edgar Allan Poe Award.Chiefs was filmed for television as a six-hour drama starring Charlton Heston.Following his success with that novel, Woods published a string of fiction that established him as one of the most popular writers in the world.Orchid Beach is Stuart Woods' eighteenth novel.His previous books, Run Before the Wind (1983), Deep Lie (1986), Under the Lake (1987), White Cargo (1988), Grass Roots (1989), Palindrome and New York Dead (1989), Santa Fe Rules (1991), L.A. Times (1992), Dead Eyes (1993), Heat (1994), Imperfect Strangers and Choke (1995), Dirt (1996),Dead in the Water (1997) and Swimming to Catalina(1998) have been translated into Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Japanese, and Hebrew and there are millions of copies of his books in print around the world. Several of Stuart Woods' novels have been optioned for feature films and television movies. Stuart Woods lives on the the Treasure Coast of Florida and Litchfield County, Connectict.He still flies his own plane, and sails.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In Dead in the Water, Stone has barely arrived in St. Marks, a lovely Caribbean island nation, on a sailing vacation when something very strange happens: a beautiful young woman sails into the harbor, entirely alone on a large yacht. Before long she is under the intense scrutiny of local authorities in the very considerable person of Sir Winston Sutherland, the minister of justice. The problem is, though she arrived alone, she had departed the other side of the Atlantic in the company of her husband, a well-known writer, who is no longer in evidence. Evidence is what fascinates Stone Barrington, and before many pages have been turned, he is all that stands between the apparently innocent Allison Manning and the patently evil Sir Winston, whose motives are unclear. What is clear is that the St. Marks system of justice bears little resemblance to the American courts to which Stone is accustomed and that his smallest error could prove fatal to his client. Inextricably caught in a swirling storm of island madness and murder, made worse by a hurricane of sensational press coverage, Stone can hardly find the time to indulge his usual romantic inclinations, but he learns that, even under the intense illumination of a Caribbean sun, nothing is what it seems to be, and no one can be trusted.

FROM THE CRITICS

Kirkus Reviews

Woods bounces back from the doldrums of his last few formula thrillers in this tidy did-she-do-it puzzler, nicely stirred by Caribbean breezes.

When the 45-foot yacht Expansive puts into the island paradise of St. Marks, the only thing missing is the skipper, mystery novelist Paul Manning, who, his wife tearfully tells the authorities, suffered a fatal heart attack while she watched helplessly from high atop a mast, and had to be buried at sea. The story's good enough for the coroner's inquest, but not for Sir Winston Sutherland, the ambitious Minister of Justice, who thinks a high-profile conviction might be just the thing to vault him into the aging Prime Minister's post. Luckily for Allison, she has just the credentials (blond hair, killer bod, boundless sexual stamina) to secure herself the premier legal representation on St. Marks: vacationing New York lawyer Stone Barrington (Dirt, 1996, etc.), whose appetite for adventure, etc., has been whetted by the unexpected absence of his live-in girlfriend Arrington Carter. It's a case that suits Woods's talent for streamlined, unnuanced narrative down to the shoreline. With no witnesses but Allison—now enjoying a cool $12 million payoff from Paul's insurance—and virtually no physical evidence showing how (or even whether) Paul met his death, Stone doesn't have to bother arguing the facts; all he has to do is orchestrate a massive p.r. campaign designed to impress on the government what a disaster a conviction would be for St. Marks's crucial tourist industry—while trying to find some wiggle room in the island's draconian trial law, which pretty much assumes that the accused is guilty and the real crime would be keeping the jury past dinnertime.

Trying to make this neat, utterly unsurprising, tale—Woods's best since L.A. Times (1993)—last more than one sitting would be like staying up all night nursing a Godiva truffle.