Book Review sent to Winghill Writing School

Book Review
Dark Harbor (A Stone Barrington Novel) by Stuart Woods

This novel continues with the usual cast of main characters created by Stuart Woods. The characters make serial appearances but each novel is a stand-alone story.
The three main characters are Stone Barrington, Holly Barker, and Dino Bacchetti. Stone is a lawyer, an ex-cop, and a sometime CIA agent contract operator. Holly was a military police officer and a recently retired police chief from Florida. Dino is detective with the New York Police Department. They are all fast friends but Holly and Stone have a special ongoing added closeness. Another close friend is Lance a CIA operative and Deputy Director.

In this story, a call summons Stone to an island in Maine; his cousin Dick Stone and his family were murdered in their home and Stone declared the executor of the estate. On the surface, it looked like a murder/suicide and was declared such by the state police and coroner. Stone has a different idea, to him the angle of the shot into Dick Stones temple was too difficult to accomplish alone and victim’s will was recently changed. The bulk of the estate went to a charity but Stone inherited the use of Dick’s house and property into perpetuity. This left Dick’s brother, Caleb Stone, and his family with only a small life insurance policy payout. This resulted in a tense situation when they found Stone moved into the house they expected to inherit and move into. Dick had twin sons, Enos and Eben, who were somewhat wild but reined in by their father, none are happy with Stone’s intrusion.

Dick was known to be a in the diplomatic service but a secret office in the house revealed that he was a long serving CIA operative. Stone called in his friends to help him find out the whole truth and find the real killer or killers. It seemed more like a professional hit and linked to Dick’s CIA career, but more murders happened on the island and a teenage girl was raped and murdered. A couple of the murders had similar signatures but others could not be linked in any way. Why would two teenage girls be murdered, both were friends and one was Dick Stone’s daughter?

Stone and his friends chased down the obvious to no avail. They could not find any connection to Dick’s CIA work. The teenage girl’s diary had gone missing which did not mean a lot until the diary of Stone’s niece was stolen. Stone came across the diary and placed it in Dick’s safe without reading it. Stone came home one day to find the entire safe ripped out and stolen. Later it is found in the water at the boatshed where the thief accidently dropped it. Stone retrieves the safe and asks a friend to dry out the diary carefully and see what was in it that would lead to its theft. In it she found cryptic references to X, Y, and Z. Stone decided to follow the weakest of clues to see what would happen and uncovered other unsolved murders had happened on the mainland over the last few years.

He decided to see if his twin nephews were connected with the murders. It was a far stretch for him with so little to work on. He did not know his nephews or Dick Stone well having only spent a short time with them one summer. Stone thought that X, Y, Z in the diary may be a reference to the twins and their nefarious activities, the twins were known to be a little wild. A motive for the killings appeared. As Stone got closer to the linking the twins to some of the murders, he realized that Dick had been covering up for them; then, suddenly Holly Barker disappeared. The summer occupants to the island all left for the season and only the few permanent residents remained.

Lance, Stone’s CIA friend, had satellite thermal imaging employed in the search for Holly. Eventually, Stone was able to connect the twins with the murders and found Caleb covering up for them and holding Holly. Holly offered Caleb one point two million dollars for her freedom and won her release. Stone and his team defeated the twins alibi’s and the story came to rapid conclusion with the boys murdering their own father and Stone stopping them as they were about to take off in a small private plane. They were heading to South America. Stone stopped them propeller to propeller.

I have read other Stone Barrington novels. Stuart Woods writing is easy to read. His characters are endearing and well as enduring. The stories are well developed and each can stand alone in the series as the author always repaints his characters in each story. The stories are light and well paced without being bogged down in convoluted suspense. Stuart Woods weaves in some romantic encounters to add warmth.