Hot Mahogany

Edgar-winner Woods's 15th Stone Barrington novel (after Shoot Him if He Runs ) finds the familiar cast of characters up to their usual antics: dining at Elaine's, drinking expensive liquor and having fantastic sex. Stone's pal CIA deputy director for operations, Lance Cabot, asks Stone to watch over his brother, Barton Cabot, who's recovering from injuries, amnesia chief among them, after being beaten and robbed. Barton, who builds and sells reproduction antiques, lives in Connecticut, as luck would have it, near a cottage Stone owns. The plot centers on a missing 18th-century mahogany secretary, which is worth in the neighborhood of $24 million, and the theft of hundreds of gold coins from the South Vietnamese government when Barton was commanding a regiment there during the Vietnam War. As always, Stone gets to bed several new beautiful women in the course of pursuing the case. Series fans will find all their expectations nicely fulfilled. Author tour. (Sept. )