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New York Dead
Stone Barrington series # 1

by Stuart Woods

     

This is the first in Stuart Woods’ very successful "Stone Barrington" series. It begins with Stone as a detective on the NYPD who is on restricted duty while he’s recovering from a bullet wound in his knee. 

Stone Barrington was born into an upper-crust family and although he completed law school, he opted for becoming a cop rather than take the bar exam.  He lives in an inherited house in a fine neighborhood that is slightly beyond the reach of a detective’s salary.

One evening, while he walking home from his favorite restaurant hang out, a woman plunges from a twelfth floor penthouse apartment and lands directly in front of Barrington. He recognizes her as Sasha Najinsky, an up and coming TV personality who was scheduled to become the co-anchor of a major evening news show.  The cop in him sends him racing into the apartment building to see if he can collar whoever might be responsible for sending the TV reporter to her death.  Barrington almost catches up to the culprit but his bum knee gets in the way and he can’t keep up with the chase.

The water gets even muddier when Barrington is informed that Sasha appeared to still be alive when she was loaded into the ambulance but then the ambulance collides with a fire engine on the way to the hospital and, in the confusion, Sasha simply disappears.

Plenty of suspects surface as the investigation progresses. A woman who is rapidly advancing in her highly competitive field makes a lot of enemies. Could it be that the existing news anchor, who is suddenly being forced to share the spotlight with this rising star, had something to do with the murder? Or what about the weird fan with an even weirder profession who is obsessed with Sasha and has been sending her love letters for quite some time?

An overloaded police department stumbles on a convenient answer when Sasha’s lesbian lover commits suicide after police interrogation. The cops decide to end the investigation and lay the blame on the girlfriend.  Stone Barrington is reluctant to accept this solution and falls into disfavor with the Police Department. He subsequently "fails" the examination of his knee and is forced into medical retirement.

Faced with the challenges of unemployment combined with high living expenses, Stone finally takes the bar exam and, through an old law school connection, lands a position with a high end law firm.

He winds up revisiting the Sasha Nijinsky case.

Author Stuart Woods launched an enduring series with this book and that fact alone makes it a must read.  But it’s a good story with a plot that keeps surprising the reader. There are plenty of twists like the deranged serial killer who targets only cab drivers and keeps the protagonist off balance.  You can’t help liking Stone Barrington.

The Book

HarperCollins
March 31, 2009
Mass Market Paperback
978-0-06-171186-2
Mystery
More at Amazon.com
Excerpt
NOTE:

The Reviewer

Dennis Collins
Reviewed 2009
NOTE: Reviewer Dennis Collins is the author of The Unreal McCoy and the second installment in this series, Turn Left at September. He's also Myshelf.com's "Between the Pages" columnist, covering the mystery genre and related topics.
© 2009 MyShelf.com