Kisser by Stuart Woods

I've been pondering this review for a couple days now, worrying about the old notion of whether to review a book about which I have almost nothing nice to say. Is it a waste of my time and unfair to the author? Well, since this blog is my opinion and only my opinion, I'm going to go for it.

This is #17 in the Stone Barrington series. I stopped reading this series many years ago, long ago enough that I had forgotten why. When I found this book in the gift boxes I received some time ago, I decided to give it a chance before donating it to a book sale. And having read it, I remember why I had crossed Stuart Woods off of my list of authors to look for.

Stone Barrington is a superstud, superlawyer, superdetective, super-rich guy who picks up the phone when he wants something, says "jump," and the person on the other end says, "How high?" Everything is so easy for the characters in Kisser. For instance there's a young woman from South Carolina who has arrived in NYC with loads of money from a divorce settlement that of course she has invested wisely, and she is determined to be a Broadway star. Immediately she gets an audition for a hot producer's new show, he proprositions her, she turns him down, and at a dinner party that evening dumps his full dinner plate in his lap, thus getting her lots of media attention and she ends up starring in his new show. Whew! No struggle, no hard work - just handed to her on a silver platter.

There isn't much mystery here. One plot line ends anemically, the other is slightly more interesting but still thin. I don't know how rich NYC people live and would be interested in being transported to that world if only there were characters I could care about. All we learn here is about their sex lives. Stone has so many beautiful (of course), sexy (of course) women throwing themselves at him and into his bed that he can't even keep it down to one at a time. I'm not a prude, but this is ridiculous.

Stuart Woods is a very talented writer who has written 40+ books, so I can't figure out why he would waste his time and mine on this drivel. Why doesn't he write something worth reading? He certainly can't need money that badly. Sorry Mr. Woods, you're back on my black list unless someone can convince me that something you've written is a real novel.