Stuart Woods’ ‘A Safe House’ is the Perfect Beach Read [REVIEW]

Someone is on the run. Someone with personal ties to high echelons of power. Only those connections are dangerous and want someone dead. When Stone Barrington is asked to step forward and offer someone protection, will he be able to keep his promise, or will this threat destroy them all? Find out in Stuart Woods’ A Safe House.

Stone and his pal Dino Bacchetti just want to enjoy a quiet dinner at Patroon, their favorite restaurant in the Big Apple. But they are quickly interrupted by Lance Cabot, director of the CIA, and Henry Wilcox, his deputy director of Operations. They are there to remind Stone that he works as Lance’s associate director, and as such, they have a job for him to do.

The job requires Stone to transport an unidentified individual on his private aircraft across the pond to his house in England, where that person will stay for an indetermined amount of time. Stone can’t even get Lance to cough up the person’s gender. All he does find out is that the person has considerable value to the Agency and must be protected at all costs. In fact, Stone won’t find out who he is transporting and protecting until they are out of New York airspace.

Although he isn’t crazy about taking on an assignment blindly, he does as he’s asked. Once he discovers the person’s identity, Stone realizes that the task at hand is going to be challenging on multiple levels, both because his mystery guest isn’t crazy about hiding out for long, and because the threat is tenacious, wealthy, and connected. As a result, Stone racks up plenty of mileage on his plane as he traverses the globe and reaches out to old friends and colleagues to help keep his guest alive and kicking.

If you haven’t been able to tell by now, I’ll tell you: it’s hard to write about someone I can’t identify. I don’t want to spoil the story’s action for you. But suffice it to say, A Safe House is another globetrotting Stone Barrington adventure filled with interesting locales, gorgeous females, larger-than-life villains, and Stone’s quick, witty banter.

Per Woods’ usual, this is a quickly paced story that makes for the kind of fun, fast read his fans have come to expect. Much like an ice-cold mojito on a blistering summer day, A Safe House is perfect for a holiday spent reading on the beach under a brightly colored umbrella. It is lighthearted and breezy and hits its target just right.

Stuart Woods is the author of more than 90 novels.

He is a native of Georgia and began his writing career in the advertising industry.

Chiefs, his debut in 1981, won the Edgar Award.

An avid sailor and pilot, Woods lives in Key West, Mount Desert Island, and Washington Depot, Connecticut.

For more information, visit StuartWoods.com, or like him on Facebook.

A SAFE HOUSE
By Stuart Woods
304 pp. G.P. Putnam’s Sons. $28.

Purchase A Safe House direct from Jathan & Heather Books or from one of these other fine online retailers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Half Price Books, Hudson Booksellers, IndieBound, Powell’s, Target, or Walmart.