Wild Card

Bestseller Woods’s fast-paced 49th Stone Barrington novel picks up where its predecessor, 2018’s A Delicate Touch, left off. New York attorney Stone and his latest paramour, New York Times reporter Jamie Cox, are ensconced at his English estate, where Jamie is working on her book exposing the links between a family-owned investment bank, H. Thomas & Son, and organized crime. Since Henry Thomas, the family patriarch, blames Stone for unearthing this damaging information, he and his henchmen are bent on revenge. When a hired gun takes an errant shot at Stone on the estate grounds, Stone and Jamie flee England for the comparative safety of his Manhattan townhouse. Meanwhile, Henry is angling to have his former congressman son, Hank, become the Republican candidate for president, which involves derailing the campaign of the popular if obnoxious junior senator from Florida, Joe Box. The tension rises as a determined assassin makes a deal with the Thomases to kill Stone, who’s dropped his guard after mistakenly believing they no longer have reason to do him in. Woods shows no sign of flagging in this long-running series. [em]Author tour. Agent: Anne Sibbald, Janklow & Nesbit. (Mar.) [/em]