Stealth

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY JUL 15, 2019

Bestseller Woods's surprising 51st Stone Barrington novel (after Contraband) takes the New York lawyer to Station Two, an MI6 training facility in the Scottish Highlands, where he almost drowns after driving the Aston Martin he borrowed from his friend Dame Felicity Devonshire, the head of MI6, off a bridge into a river and where he's treated for minor injuries by Lt. Rose McGill, an attractive doctor with whom he soon becomes intimate. He also receives a dressing down from Station Two's colonel, Roger Fife-Simpson, for wrecking the head of MI6's sports car, but the colonel apologizes after investigators determine that a foreign operative who infiltrated the facility shot the car's tires as it sped over the bridge. Stone later makes an enemy of the disgruntled Fife-Simpson, who feels higher-ups have thwarted his career ambitions. The rising tension doesn't prevent Stone from spending a lot of time in bed with Rose (and Dame Felicity). Never mind a final confrontation straight out of a James Bond film. This venture into espionage territory makes a refreshing change from the criminal skullduggery Stone usually faces.