Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable Read
Review: "Orchid Blues" is not a heavy, deep, dark mystery. Now that that's out of the way, the book is a good read. If you've read "Orchid Beach" you are already familiar with the characters and the writing. The hook is Holly's fianc? being killed in cold blood at the beginning of the story. The real star in this story is Ham. He is able to infiltrate the group of underground militia that murdered Holly's fianc?. Yes there are several lucky breaks, but you know what this is a work of FICTION.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable Read
Review: "Orchid Blues" is not a heavy, deep, dark mystery. Now that that's out of the way, the book is a good read. If you've read "Orchid Beach" you are already familiar with the characters and the writing. The hook is Holly's fiancé being killed in cold blood at the beginning of the story. The real star in this story is Ham. He is able to infiltrate the group of underground militia that murdered Holly's fiancé. Yes there are several lucky breaks, but you know what this is a work of FICTION.
Rating: 
Summary: Didn't anyone else notice?
Review: Good read, enjoyable, but I have to complain on two points:
Sure, Stone Barrington makes a cameo appearance, for no reason at all except that we like him and he's easy on the eye. BUT - he's there to buy a plane, tail number November 1 2 3 Tango Foxtrot. Then in the end, when the bad guys are escaping, they escape in a plane with the tail number - you guessed it - November 1 2 3 Tango Foxtrot. Did they steal Stone's plane? Was the mysterious John actually Stone Barrington? NO! Wow, what a great plot twist was missed here. Or maybe Mr. Woods just likes that number - maybe he has a plane, too, with the tail number - well, you get the point.
The other big boo-boo was having the bad guy go to Ham's for a drink, and nobody thought to get his fingerprints off the glass. Well, he could've been wearing gloves, but you'd think someone would notice THAT.
All in all a good read, doesn't require a lot of mental investment on the readers' part, and a fairly good description of Florida's Treasure Coast.
C@.
Rating:
Summary: Great reading experience
Review: Holly Barker is going to the chapel to get married. Her best friend Daisy, her Doberman Pincher, will serve as the maid of honor. However, Holly's elation abruptly turns to horror when her fiancé is murdered during a bank robbery that turned violent. Holly leads the official investigation that takes her to a town not found on the most detailed of maps. The inhabitants are white supremacists who recruit Holly's dad Ham into joining their organization.
Ham pretends to join the militia and quickly assumes a key role amidst the group. Holly and her law enforcement peers obtain Ham's cooperation and he places listening devices in the organization's encampment. This enables them to learn that Ham is selected to assassinate a VIP, but no one knows whom the intended victim is. Unless they can learn the identity of the target, someone will die.
Stuart Woods has his more famous character Stone Barrington makes cameo appearances in ORCHID BLUES, which allows fans to feel a greater connection to the Barker series. Holly is a humorous independent soul who copes with grief by diving headfirst into a mystery filled with more twists and turns than that found in a maze. This is a good read on a cold winter's night. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: A quick and fun read.
Review: Holly Barker is the cities Police Chief and is accompanied by her best friend Daisy, her Doberman Pincher. The book starts with Holly waking up on the morning of her wedding day. However, her day takes a sharp downturn when her fiancé is murdered during a bank robbery that turned violent. Holly leads the official investigation with the aid of her friend in the FBI. The investigation leads her to a town that is not shown on any maps. The inhabitants are white supremacists who recruit Holly's dad Ham into joining their organization. Ham pretends to join this group and is quickly given a key role within it. His infiltration of the group enables the law enforcment agencies involved to learn that Ham is selected to assassinate a VIP, but no one knows whom the intended victim is. Unless they can learn the identity of the target, someone will die.
Rating: 
Summary: Just Okay
Review: I picked this up because I enjoyed Woods' earlier works. This is okay light reading. The story is fast-paced, the characters likeable. My difficulty with the book is that the reader has to suspend reality. The militia is too powerful; the "star" character's father (who really is the star character in this novel) is too good or too lucky (In one place he is able to plant a bug in a completely ridiculously lucky set circumstances.); and, the twists in the story-line are never quite believeable. The man is also immediately taken in as a blood brother by this super-careful super-paranoid group. Also, the killing of the main character's fiance at the outset is absolutely superfluous to the story - although it was a good way to hook me into the book. If you can suspend reality it is okay beach reading. If you can't, it is a trumped up mystery where the author pulls all the strings to make the story work. Although this novel can be read in a matter of hours, there are other better ways to spend that reading time.
Rating:
Summary: pretty good, quick paced read
Review: I've been enjoying the Stuart Woods series of books lately..been reading more stone barrington novels, but I wanted to pick up and see what holly barker was up to in her sophomore effort..
what I like about woods is that he writes these two characters so differently and it keeps the books varied and interesting....barrington, while likeable, has questionable moral standards at times, whereas Baker is quite the opposite..in other words, his books aren't predictable and they're never formulaic!
Anyway, onto this book..there are some BIG surprises and the return of some familiar faces (some surprise appearances as well)...the good guys are never perfect and the bad guys aren't always 'evil incarnate' either..everyone's got a motivation for doing something..
this one starts in a completely different place than where it ends (plot wise, not geographically speaking) so you're brought along for a pretty good ride...some parts just have palpable tension too...
definetly worth reading..
Rating:
Summary: Good for my particular mood
Review: Reviews of Stuart Woods' books seem to fall into three categories: Those who love them, those who find them shallow, and those who pine for the Woods of old whose books were so full of suspense and intrigue with great plots and lots of imagination. But not every book can be Chiefs (his first novel) or Imperfect Strangers (an early non-series novel). But they are still fast easy reads, great for the DC Metro commute. Holly Barker is back for a second time. She's is still an appealing enough character and the story has some interesting moments. There is little imagination to the plotting and its all fairly predictable. Still, there are characters to like and root for, Holly, her father Ham, and her dog Daisy. And beyond those who seem to wear a sign saying "I'm Evil: Hate Me" there are always one or two about whom we are not to sure. The FBI Agent from the first Holly Barker novel, Harry Crisp, plays a real jerk, something of a comedown from the first book. The idea of putting Ham up for this "job" with the bad guys, consdidering the stakes involved, is rather silly. But as other reviewers have pointed out, Woods is still very good on the action scenes. I wonder if other readers have noticed, as I did, Holly's strange reaction to Oxenhandler's death. And how long did it take to figure out who was in the line at the bank with him? True, Woods is no Hemmingway or Faulkner, as another reviewer pointed out. Sad to say, he started out like one of them, but he's more a franchise now, as indicated in the author's note that is so annoying and which now appears at the end of each of his books.
Rating:
Summary: A Fast Read
Review: Stuart Wood's Orchid Blues is a fast read ... his chapters are short, making you want to read on & on. Having only read one of Sutart's books (Orchid Blues), I am definitely going to read more of them. You know there's violence; you know there's mystery; you know there's accuracy. I read it so fast, I didn't even look at the back to see how it ended! Now that's a good mystery! And no swearing ... I am now going to read Blood Orchid. And since Holly meets up with Stone, I will then go on to read the series of crime scenes he's involved in. Thank you, Stuart Woods.
Rating: 
Summary: Too many concurrent series?
Review: Stuart Woods first came to my attention in "Chiefs", the genesis of the Lee Family saga, that family's current generation now represented by President Will Lee, who inherited more than the names of his police chief grandfather and Georgia governor father ("Chiefs" was their story). Another currently-running series is the Stone Barrington series, whose hero--suave babe-magnet lawyer-investigator--was once a New York City Police detective. Although Barrington seems far too smooth to have ever been an NYPD cop. You see a guy whose name is two last names and you think "preppie". This story is volume two of the Holly Barker saga, the first book being "Orchid Beach", the latest being recent hardcover release "Blood Orchid". The premise of this series is hardly preposterous at all--a lady police chief of a small Florida town who served as an Army MP officer, Since she commanded an MP unit, she was probably a major. Her father is Hamilton "Ham" Barker, a retired career master sergeant who plays a mentor role. Don't knock it--it works in "Crossing Jordan". But all in all, Holly strikes me as the type of cop Patricia Cornwell would think up--capable and with enough presence to make her gender a non-issue. She's obviously well past having to prove herself "just because she's a girl". And, also as Cornwell would write about a lady cop, the emphasis is on putting criminals away like cops are supposed to do, not putting some sneering sexist oinkmeister in his place. Anyway, the story begins with tragedy: on her wedding day, Holly's husband-to-be stops at the bank and gets blown away in a holdup. In the course of the investigation, Holly has to deal with a Bureau agent who faces a dilemma--how does he crowd "the locals" out of this case when "the locals" are a good friend? Stone Barrington does a cameo in this story. Will Lee plays an "offstage" role--he's targeted in a Presidential assassination plot connected with the robbery Holly's fiance died in. Also in the course of the investigation, Holly and her father turn up a supposedly nonexistent town that's an emcampment for a group of local gun nuts who turn out to be The Elect. If you read "Grass Roots" this group figured in a plot against President Lee when he was still running for the Senate. If at first you don't succeed, yadda-yadda...But somehow, despite all the good foundational elements, some of them proven stuff from Woods' other work, despite the superb quality of Woods' other work--the story just doesn't get off the ground. I've got "Orchid Beach" on my wishlist--somehow that one got by me. Maybe that one and the new "Blood Orchid" will prove this book to be a temporary slump. Or maybe Woods shouldn't try to carry on too many concurrent series at once, I don't know.
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