Desperate Measures

Stone Barrington #47

by Stuart Woods

Book #47 from the series: Stone Barrington
🎧Run Time = 7 hours and 43 minutes

From a #1 New York Times bestselling author: Attorney Stone Barrington’s new personal pilot has him wrapped around her finger — but he must quickly solve a troubling series of crimes in order to keep her safe. “Woods creates another action-packed thriller… with plenty of interesting twists and turns that make for a nonstop, can’t-catch-your-breath listen!” (Booklist)

Stone Barrington faces down danger on New York's mean streets in the latest thriller from perennial fan favorite Stuart Woods.

Upon returning to the states from a European jaunt, Stone Barrington makes the acquaintance of a stunning woman who seems like she could be an ideal candidate to meet some of his professional - and personal - needs. Before long, though, Stone is put to the task of protecting his new hire when New York City is rocked by a series of disturbing crimes, and it looks as if she might be the next target.

In the city that never sleeps there's always a plot being hatched, and the only recourse is constant vigilance and a bit of luck. But if those defensive systems fail, Stone will have to go head to head against some of the most dastardly scum he's ever faced....

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Suspense, Crime, Thriller, Audiobook, Mystery Thriller

320 pages, Hardcover

First published October 16, 2018

About the author

Stuart Woods was an American novelist best known for Chiefs and his long-running Stone Barrington series. A Georgia native, he initially pursued a career in advertising before relocating to England and Ireland, where he developed a passion for sailing. His love for the sport led him to write his first published work, Blue Water, Green Skipper, about his experiences in a transatlantic yacht race.
His debut novel, Chiefs, was inspired by a family story about his grandfather, a police chief. The book, a gripping crime saga spanning several decades, won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and was later adapted into a television miniseries. It launched Woods' career as a novelist, leading to a prolific output of thrillers.
Woods' most famous creation, Stone Barrington, is a former NYPD detective turned high-profile lawyer who navigates elite circles while solving crimes. The series became a bestseller and remained a staple of his career, often featuring crossover characters from his other books, such as CIA operative Holly Barker and defense lawyer Ed Eagle.
Beyond writing, Woods was an experienced pilot and yachtsman. He maintained homes in Florida, Maine, and New Mexico, where he lived with his wife and their Labrador, Fred. His literary career spanned decades, with dozens of bestsellers to his name.

Reviews

[M. · Rating 1 out of 5]

So, there's a dead "girl" there that was carrying a tiny purse in her vagina, just big enough to hold her DL, credit card, and a few bucks.







Has the author even seen a woman up close?

[Tim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful. Tiresome. Save yourself for something much more worthwhile. 0 of 10 stars!

[Laura]

I read this book because of the famous vagina-purse quote and am sorry to say: after two (2) vagina-purse mentions in the first 47 pages, it never came up again. I guess the story was resolved without Elizabeth Sweeney figuring into it much, but really? Something like that, he thinks is so ordinary (COUGH) (oops there went my tiny purse) that it didn't even warrant some kind of explanation? OOOOOO-KAY.

Women are sets & props for this guy. Other than the ones who work for him, and other than his buddy's wife, they're all young, beautiful, and DTF with a late-middle-aged guy (he has a grown-up son with a career).

As for the story, there were a few small loose ends, I thought -- things that got left off (e.g. tiny purse), and things that came out of nowhere. No one thing was too major, but those whatabout bits will pile up when you have enough of them.

But hey, the dialogue was pretty entertaining at times.

*** A NOTE ON RICHIE BANKINGTON ^H ^H ^H BRAD FITZCASHBOX ^H ^H ^H STONE BARRINGTON ***

Maybe if I'd read the 46 (!!!) previous books, I'd know where a former police detective got as stinking-ass rich as this guy did. (Best guess: from lawyerin' and maybe wealthy family? I suppose?) But I didn't and I almost surely won't.

Let's look at some other detectives I *do* like:

* Eve Dallas (J.D. Robb): horrible childhood, became a regular cop & then detective, now filthy bonkers rich. But she's tough, smart, hardworking, and a wiseass. Alright in my book!
* Archy McNally (Lawrence Sanders, Vincent Lardo): hereditarily wealthy; often idle; puts the play in playboy. But he's a charming mofo (ten times more charming than that Arnold on Green Acres) and very sweet to his mom. Also I love his Palm Beach outfits and the Pelican Club.
* Kay Scarpetta (Patricia Cornwell): got rich somehow? I forget? Lucy's money is part of it, and I guess she earned some & married some? Anyway. Late Scarpetta books, probably around when she switched to 1st person, have had a clammy glumness to them. But I liked early/mid Scarpetta a whole lot and still retain affection.

So, is it unfair that I dislike Crate Barfington this much? Probably! Do I care? Not a chance! UUUGH THIS GUY.

[Adela · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book contains a scene in which a medical examiner is able to identify a dead body because "the girl had a tiny purse tucked into her vagina, just big enough to hold her driver's license, a credit card, and a few bucks."

This highly implausible use of a sex organ is just one example of the poor writing found within. One star is one star too many for this author.

[Skip · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually think this is one of his better books, at least of late. While it's still formulaic, here's a new twist: the first woman he sleeps with tells him she only has sex with a guy three times so she does not get attached so Stone forces himself to do the nasty only twice and then hires her as his new pilot (as he swaps his plane for a larger one requiring two pilots.) Turns out she is the same type of women being serially killed and won't play it safe. Good backstory on catching the bad guys here, including sexy, competitive twins. Stone also becomes one of two suspected perps when a divorcee who he helps is murdered and he finds the dead body. The ex-husband hedge fund manager has a temper, and Fred drops him when he's stalking in the neighborhood. Herbie handles the divorce. Dino bops in and out. No politics in this one: what a relief!

[Janice · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just plain dumb. It was like a series of stories instead of one cohesive plot...I suppose he thought they were plot twists, but I just thought it was more like..."well I haven't hit my required number of words yet, so I'd better think of something else to throw in there." And let's not forget the unresolved storylines....just plain dumb I can't believe a publisher would publish such an amateur effort. And charge $28.00 for it! I read a library copy and hope nobody actually paid money for this.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another in the long running guilty pleasure series on the life and times of Stone Barrington. He’s rich, good-looking, attracts both evil doers and female bed companions like most folks attract mosquitoes on a hot sticky summer night.

[Renee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Is no one going to bring up the fact that this author, editor and publisher didn’t see anything wrong with a character stashing a purse inside her lady parts? See page 42: “The girl had a tiny purse tucked into her vagina, just big enough hold her driver’s license, a credit card, and a few bucks.”

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

The description sounds more exciting than the book actually was. Where do these people come from? They throw out terms like "one-hundred million dollars" like everyone has ever even seen one million dollars let alone several hundred of them...they constantly go out to the most expensive restaurants in New York...no McDonalds for these folks. They buy airplanes and houses like they grew on trees...and everything...no matter what it is, always works to their favor. Oh...and there is sex and more sex between all of these events. If you have been following Stone Barrington from the olden days of the series you will just take the whole thing in stride...but you are a newbie you could well have a difficult time taking all of this in.

[Mary Chamberlain · Rating 1 out of 5]

This author has written MANY books. I think he is pushing to get a book out so isn't getting a good story. Everyone is very rich and beautiful and the main character is jumping in bed with almost every woman he meets. It is written telling facts but no depth or emotion. Ba humbug!

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

#47 in the Stone Barrington series. This 4th 2018 series entry by prolific author Stuart Woods returns again to my favorite guilty pleasure as we visit the adventurous lifestyles of the rich and sexual. Stone returns to the U.S. after farewell sex with Kelly in London on page 1. He bumps into Faith at the NYC heliport on page 4 and they have sex on Page 13 and again on 14. He hires her on page 23 and that ends their sex. On page 60, he's in a luggage store when Cilla's shoe heel breaks, she lands in his lap, and we're off on another adventure. This isn't sophisticated literature but it is a fast, enjoyable read and lots of fun.

A serial killer is targeting pretty, petite blond women on Manhattan's East Side, a description that fits Stone Barrington's newest employee all too well. Barrington met Faith Barnacle in a heliport on his return from Europe just after being dumped by a woman who had given him up for her CIA career. After bedding Faith twice, he hires her as his personal pilot and provides bodyguard security because of the serial-killer peril. But she chafes at being guarded and nearly becomes the next murder victim, thus faring better than Priscilla Scott, a woman who literally falls into Barrington's lap when the heel of her shoe breaks. Barrington provides treatment for Scott's sprained ankle, and offers legal advice and more; but her furious about-to-be-ex-husband becomes a threat. Despite briefly becoming a murder suspect himself, the urbane Barrington banters with his pal Police Commissioner Dino Bacchetti, and is never lacking for female companionship.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

How many women can Stone Barrington bed in one book? The answer is way too many. Kelly leaves him to go back into the CIA. She's on the flight out when he meets Faith, a pilot. He hires her so that affair bites the dust. However, Faith is small and blonde and those women are being targeted by a serial killer. Stone meets Cilla who needs a divorce lawyer so he refers her to his friend Herb and takes up with her even though her soon-to-be-ex is a thug. Along comes Edith and shortly thereafter, he can't choose between two twins. Come on, Stone. His bed hopping is my least favorite part about this series.

This book is a predictable Stone story but I honestly thought it was one of Stuart Woods' better Stone books of late simply because I was entertained, especially toward the end. No politics in this one, thank goodness. The President and the CIA are somewhere else this time. And Stone mostly stays at his home in New York City instead of hopping around all of his houses.

[Jenny Clark · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is rather like a Twinkie- Quick and kinda fun to eat, but when it's gone what do you feel like you ate? Nothing.
So, Stone has 6 women he's playing with in this book... Well, ok not really playing but I can't come up with a better word for it.
As soon as Cilla is dead, he is over it... a few days later he is with Edie... Does he even feel anything???
The women too don't seam to mind how many there are and what the overlap is...
This is a soap opera with a few murders thrown in as "plot"
While it is an ok read, entertaining in its way, it's not near what it could be.

[Deb Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Gag me with a spoon" is my first -- and lasting --impression of Stone Barrington and his fantastical world. I realize this series by Stuart Woods has plenty of fans; I just won't be among that throng.

The writing isn't strong nor is the crime and subsequent investigation. The world revolves around the uber-rich Barrington and his circle of friends and family -- all successful and well-to-do.

I just couldn't find enough to enjoyably sink my noir teeth into here.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Look, I haven't actually read this, but this book gets 1 star (the only thing closest to zero stars that goodreads allows as a logged rating) for including the sentence: The girl had a tiny purse tucked into her vagina, just big enough to hold her driver's license, a credit card, and a few bucks.

Run away. Run far, far away.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fun Barrington book. It's very much like what you would expect from the duo Stone and Dino with a serial killer on the loose in NYC. Yes, to some it's an "eye roll" plot - lawyer in tailored suit chauffeured in a Bentley chasing bad guys. It's light and fun and why I love it.

[Donna Woodard · Rating 2 out of 5]

OMG really… brand names and uppity…bougie bunch of people. I guess he is identifying people by the brand liquor they drink and be purse they carry. A bit ridiculous to me. Must be letting us know these are the upper crust!
The haves!
I read it, rolling my eyes, because it was the only book light enough for my carry on bag.

[Laura Wonderchick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slightly disappointed with this one. Nothing outstanding to make it different from so many of the rest of this series. I still enjoyed some of the banter between Stone and Dino and the usual mysteries.

[kerry burgess · Rating 5 out of 5]

love this series of books but am seriously fed up that nearly every book stone barrington meets a woman and they are always from a small town in Georgia, Delano. well considering this is 47th book in series and nearly every woman he meets is from there it cant be that small a town or stuart woods is just so much in love with Delano that they all have to be from there lol apart from that great read as usual

[Dana · Rating 1 out of 5]

So, I checked out this book because of the vagina purse. I thought perhaps it was meant as a joke or to be spoofy. Sadly, that is not the case. The book is poorly written and the conversation is stilted. The main character, Stone Barrington, is, I presume supposed to be rather James Bond-like, but he fails to be interesting enough to do so. I have been told that this author writes so many books - this is 47 in this series - that unnamed co-writers probably do most of the writing anyway. I am not sure who put that bit in, but, while humorous, the joke seems to be unintentional and is on the author. I am not finishing the book because it is not worth my time.

[The Half-blood Reader]

This is the infamous book for having a woman carry a tiny purse in her vagina *cracks fingers because that was too ridiculous to write, and, dear reader, we struggled*

"Okay," he said ,"the ME confirms his first estimate of time of death. The girl had a tiny purse tucked into her vagina, just big enough to hold her driver's license, a credit card, and a few bucks. Her name is Elizabeth Sweeney."

Elizabeth must be a crack-head, and her skin must be chaffing... I know why the "book" is called Desperate Measures: you'll desperately do anything to try to bleach the discomfort of this terrible image Woods conjured in your mind.

[Sherrie Howey · Rating 2 out of 5]

As is expected in a Stone Barrington book, there is always a beautiful woman with whom Stone gets involved. In the newest book in this series, there are too many beautiful women and it is difficult to keep them straight. I found it a bit far fetched that one of the women breaks the heel of her shoe and ends up in Stone's lap in the luggage store.
As is typical in this series, there are murders, thugs threatening Stone and dinners with Viv and Dino. It is a quick and easy read but not one of my favorites in this series.

[Carol Irvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always a great read!!

[Sherrie Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

I mean - it's a Stone Barrington novel. Nothing new here on this one. After a couple of books with an actual plot, Woods phones it in again on this one.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

SUBJECTIVE READER REVIEW WITH PLOT SPOILERS FOLLOWS:

The title 'Desperate Measures' might adequately describe the conundrum Stone finds himself in throughout the book encountering prospective bedmates and trying to evaluate them. It all starts with him backing into a short, hot charter airline pilot at Teterboro, promptly bedding her, hiring her and desperately trying to keep her alive as she nearly becomes victim five of the serial killing team at work on the East Side of NYC. At every turn of the high profile investigation--directly including the Police Commissioner and Stone--their every move seems to be telegraphed and they cannot figure it out as everyone guns up.

Waiting for a briefcase repair in a Manhattan luggage shop, a woman on crutches stumbles and falls in Stone's lap, but Priscilla Scott's got baggage--and she ain't rid of it yet! Of course Stone discovers this in parts and pieces, and there is the matter of attractions, so he and Cilla become constant companions for a few days of heavy breathing. When Donald Trask show up in his office unannounced and begins threatening Stone, he links Cilla with Herbie Fisher to pay off the sulking husband. He becomes a major league pain in the ass in parallel with the serial killer team going on the offensive. She buys a fabulously expensive apartment on Fifth Avenue and Trask shoots and stabs her to death as a housewarming present.

In the silver lining to the cloud, one of the suspects in the serial killing team is the black sheep in a very wealthy family whose patriarch is Mikeford 'Swifty' Whitehorn. The suspect, Michael Adams, a grandson, is yet watched over and Swifty seeks Stone's counsel and advice. Stone turns him on to Herbie Fisher who pleads a deal with the ADA, duly celebrated in her bed. The silver lining is Whitehorn's invite for Stone to attend a formal dinner alone at his Manhattan palace, where he is introduced to thirtyish wealthy widowed Edith 'Edie' Beresford. Edie ends up being the 'last woman standing' when the smoke clears; Whitehorn's two granddaughters Caroline and Charlotte are both young and hot, and Stone can't choose, but are too focused on freeing their guilty-as-hell cousin Michael Adams off the hook.

In possibly the oddest curve ball introduced in 'Desperate Measures,' Stone is confronted with ration versus denial for the first time in his life. The charter airline pilot, Faith Barnacle, has a strict sexual code of conduct; three strikes and you're out. That's right, three separate sexual encounters and that's it with her sexual relationship with any man. She apparently does not want the complications attendant to those such as Priscilla Scott's having with the stalking, rejected husband. Stone decides to play hardball--the day after Priscilla Scott screws his brains loose--and cuts off the nookie with Faith after the second encounter. He resolutely tells her he would rather fast than be rationed--and that was it, other than piloting his plane, if he could keep her alive. And a determined little woman Faith is; shackled to a chair and about to be tortured, raped and killed, she partially frees a leg and leverages herself--still tied to the chair--through a 12th story window, landing in a trash dumpster, but surviving!!!

Woods hid the secret to the killers thwarting the cops every move until the very end of the book, so it took on the vestiges of a thriller. I'd highly recommend you get this book and read it; if you're a Stuart Woods fan, you'll love it. And just to think that Cilla Scott seemed like such a delicious deal until Edie Beresford showed up in his life. What was the name of that smoking hot CIA officer Lance Cabot granted a sabbatical to so she could travel with Stone? Kelly something?

[ML · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book plot was super bizarre. Stone gets the kiss off from CIA Kelly and literally stumbles into his next lover. The pint sized Pilot named Faith. She has a 3 fuck rule. Seriously 🙄🙄 it’s fine he ends up hiring her after 2 tumbles and she becomes his pilot. She also becomes a crime victim. This book really goes off the rails.

Stone stumbled again onto another lover (Cilla) at a luggage store. Helps her get a divorce. The ex is not going to go quietly. Trask gets what he deserves by the end.

In another random encounter, Stone meets yet ANOTHER woman named Edie. She’s the last woman standing by the end.

Yes, Stuart Woods is a weirdo who wrote about a vagina purse 🌮 👜 but if you will remember he also wrote about the vagina phone 📱 🌮 too 🙄🙄😣.
Woods is a freak. These books are like junk food.. you know they are NOT good for you and won’t satisfy you but you still eat/read them anyway 🤣🤣🤣

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The usual stone Barring stories, rich people, rich people problems, murder, sex. Stone Barrington hires a beautiful blonde woman as his new pilot and it turns out there has been a rash of murders in town and the victim fit his new employee's description. Then there is the woman that falls into his lap literally that is in need of a good divorce attorney. She of course is also filthy stinking rich and his a husband with anger management issues and wants to take it out on Stone. It was a good story but near the end there were almost too many characters to keep up with especially Stone's lady friends. There is a name for woman like that but men are called "players" I guess.

[Vee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh, Stuart! What happened? This book was so bad it was tough to believe it was even written by you. The premise had potential, but the entire mystery was overshadowed by water-thin characters who droned endlessly with the most inane dialogue I've ever read. The motive for such horrific murders was never revealed and all the page time was given to Stone's meals and womanizing. Boring, bland and bad.

[Michael Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stone is again caught up in the affairs of others and must protect himself as well as them. He does not do a good job in this story as he appears dazed and confused by events and the actions of others. Several new characters added who might have reoccurring roles. But as usual, those in Stone's circle of friends all seem to have targets pasted on the backs.

[Debby · Rating 1 out of 5]

I find it very offensive that this liberal writer thinks it's ok to use our President's name for the villain in this book. He would not have dared use the name barack obama. So glad I did not spend my money on this book just borrowed it from the library.