Customer Reviews

Dark Harbor

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(28)

 

 

I usually enjoy his books, even though they are formulaic, but this one was so thin in plot it was sad. It was obvious from the get go who the bad guys were. Of course there was the usual requisite sex scenes, even these were thin. The dialogues were stilted. There was no character building if per chance you hadn't read his other books. I agree with the reviewer who said this must have been a churn book. I don't usually write reviews, but felt compelled to comment on this book

Life is too short to be spent reading drivel. Stuart Woods was really off the mark with this book. You shouldn't rest on your laurels Mr. Woods, your audience deserves better. I've enjoyed your past books very much, but this one left a lot to be desired. I was very put off by Stone Barrington's bed-hopping activities in this story. With Arrington (mother of his son) one night, then with Holly the next, I don't recall him being quite that indescriminate in other books. The plot was relly silly and contrived, it must have been that the publisher was pressing for a story, never mind quality. Don't waste your money on this one.

I'm a big Stuart Woods fan but this book was so bad! It holds your interest but the plot is just ridiculous. The conclusion makes no sense at all, so much is left unexplained. It's hard to believe that Stuart Woods even wrote this book. What a let-down.

Outstanding in its way: a festival of plot holes, unexplained digressions, inexplicable rushing this way and that. A tiny selection:

1. Most incredibly dumb lapse of memory
Say you flew to Maine to find a missing person, bringing her dog, a trained search dog, with you. Wouldn't you put that dog on her trail immediately on arriving at the house where she was last seen? Not the dopes in this book: though at least four of them know the dog is a trained tracker, at least a day passes before someone cries, "Hey! We could use the dog to track her missing owner!"

2. Least used high-tech information
Say you got access to special imagery from the CIA that would help you find this missing person. As soon as the information came in, wouldn't you hunker down over it? It is plain to the reader that, given the size and population of the island that someone familiar with the area could find the missing person in under 30 minutes. Instead, the characters drift off to pursue other, unsubstantiated leads. When someone else finally looks at the image, they notice something else rather than the nearby anomaly that indicates the missing person. They do notice this after the missing person is safe.

3. Would you renew this pilot's license?
In a hurry, he not only skips the preflight check, he knowingly overloads his plane. (Aside: with 6 people in a 6-passenger plane, with no luggage, and partially full fuel tanks, it is hard to know why the plane can't handle this load, but we'll take the pilot's word that this plane will barely able to make it into the air.) Wouldn't you say, "You and you- STAY HERE!" No, he labors into the air, almost hitting a house and sailboat masts.

To stop the bad guys from escaping, he lands on a runway directly towards their plane which is taking off, stopping 3 feet from their propeller. Remember, he has 5 passengers with him, none of whom has any need to be there.

4. Worst parody of the dumb local cop
What has Woods been up to on Nantucket? This can only be his revenge against a cop who caught him doing something naughty.

5. Grotesque sex scenes and relationship philosophies
Ouch!! So bad!!!

As a huge fan of "Chiefs", Stuart Woods first novel, I decided to give Dark Harbor a try. What I found was a predictable plot, gratuitous sex, and all the marks of a "spit out thinly plotted books" machine. Stone Barrington is informed that his distant cousin has allegedly ended his family's life and left Stone as the executor of his will. When it is discovered that the cousin worked for the C.I.A., Stone and company begin to investigate his death to determine if it had anything to do with his clandestine work. As they investigate and the suspects materialize, the plot grows more and more predictable. Run from this one!

A friend insisted that I read this book. This is the worst book I have ever read in the last 40 years. The writing is mechanical with only a fill-in-the-blanks style. The kidnapping in the center of the book has no connection to the rest of the story and the motive is never explained. There is no attempt to explain the villain's motives for very real evil actions or even to present a state of mind. The only times the author seems excited about what he has written is in his pro-forma descriptions of guns, locks, or airplanes. If you have a friend who asks you to read this trash, cross that person off your friend list.

I have read every one of the Stone Barrington books, as well as many other titles from Stuart Woods. I usually highly recommend them. However, Dark Harbor is a waste of time from an author who obviously is tired and is churning out books just to keep the dollars rolling in. For example, a major plot development, the kidnapping of a key character, lacks any explanation whatsoever, even though it is a major set piece of the book. This event further is contrary to the modus operandi of the killer. Stuart Woods is just going through the motions, cashing in on prior efforts. Save your money.

I too was a Stuart Woods fan. I think I'm done. This book was so awful: no plot, the same boring wine, food, sex, private plane and Elaine's obsessions. Even more appalling than the book are Stuart Woods' comments after the novel is over. Just read them -- you'll never want to purchase another book of his again. He is so condescending and has such an inflated sense of self that it made me sick that I actually have been buying his books. No more, Mr. Woods. You've just lost another reader.

Really, horrible says it all. This is only a fun little page-turner if your mind is already mush from years of television, because that's what this is - bad television turned into a book. The characters are automatons who can summon up whatever they want whenever they want with a simple phone call to their people. Not only do they have no depth to them, they have no reality to them at all. The 'sex' is pointless. The writing itself doesn't do anything more than fill the pages. There's only one bad guy in the book, so that takes care of that. I'm still trying to figure out how this got onto my bookshelf. It's not going back up there though - the library sells this stuff by the pound and that's where this one is going. Avoid it - there are too many fine authors available for anyone to bother spending time on this sort of trash. Doesn't even deserve a star.

(This refers to the book-on-tape version) About halfway through this I realized that the mystery wasn't going to have a great resolution and that several seemingly important details (a household appliance, a kidnapping, a murder here or there) were going to be kicked into the rough in the hopes that the reader would forget about them. I was reminded of the Hardy Boys novels I grew up reading, but they're really more tightly structured (although not as much sex) than this book. Getting into the motorboat and quietly going up the cove to the abandoned boathouse! Figuring out from the angle of the bullet that - gasp! - it wasn't a suicide! Hopping into a plane to chase the villains through the sky - to almost crash into them! Almost all action taking place off-camera!
When Woods wants to write about something he cares about (Hollywood and the movie biz, airplanes ... umm, anything else?) he can bang out a darn good tale (The Prince of Beverly Hills). Plots with more depth or intrigue seem to get away from him (thus requiring insertion, as it were, of fairly gratuitous sex scenes to distract the reader - not that there's anything wrong with that) and, with this one, there's a sense in which the reader is just asked to say "keep turning the page - at least some of these details will be 'splained by the end". A book for people who miss Nancy Drew, Frank and Joe and their chums ferreting out the truth while getting into scrapes and escaping peril almost every chapter!