Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Review of Doing Hard Time

Book #11. Doing Hard Time, by Stuart Woods. Unabridged audio.

I have read almost all of Woods' novels (including a review here. And here). There are occasionally unbelievable plot elements, but the novels tend to be fun adventurous romps, with well-drawn and consistent characters. And this novel lives up to all of those expectations.

This book is based on an amazingly unbelievable coincidence, which is when long-time antagonist Teddy Fay, in hiding in a small town, intercepts assassins going after Stone Barrington's son and his young friends. The fact that one of the characters points out the amazing coincidence does not lessen the fact of the coincidence.

That aside, the story pushes forwards the overall arcs of Stone, the movie production career of his son, Strategic Services, the Arrington, Dino, and Teddy Fay. And it does so in a fast-paced, entertaining way. The integrated world that Woods has created over the entire body of his fiction writing is an accomplishment, and lends a sense of verisimilitude to the action / suspense genre.

The death of the real-life Elaine worked its way into recent Woods novels, and they seem to be no longer tied to New York. Certainly, some of Stone's adventures in the past have been in London or LA, but I wonder if more of the future adventures (disclosure: I am a few novels behind in the series) will occur on the West Coast.

Source: public library

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