Stuart Woods, Fresh Disasters

Fresh Disasters

Stuart Woods

Putnam, April 2007, $25.95, 288 pp.

ISBN 0399154108

Attorney Stone Barrington is a counsel for the prestigious law firm of Woodman and Weld which means he takes the cases the firm doesn't want to dirty their hands with. He is eating at Elaine's with his old partner, police detective Dino Bacchetti, and Bill Eggers, the managing partner of Woodman and Weld. Two thugs walk into the restaurant and take small-time crook Herbie Fisher outside to beat him up for failing to pay his bookie. When Dino breaks the fight up and Herbie comes back, he tells Stone that his bookie is owned by mafia chieftain Carmine Dattila.

He wants to sue Carmine for bodily injury but Stone tells him to forget it. A tipsy Bill says he will take the case but the next morning he calls Stone and tells him the firm wants Stone to take Carmine to civil court because the attorneys will get good press without taking any risks. Herbie keeps disappearing and Carmine's goon's kidnap him, beat him up and are given orders by Carmine to kill him slowly. Herbie keeps escaping the goons and Stone but there is no escaping an enraged mafia boss who wants vengeance or is there?

There is a secondary sub-plot with a stalker who is out to kill Stone because he is sleeping with the object of his affection. It is fun watching the hero care about the women in his life while dealing with an out-of-control homicidal stalker. A fast-paced action plot and Stone's witty repartee make FRESH DISASTERS a very well-written and entertaining crime caper.

Harriet Klausner