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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Stunk, July 2, 2006
If I could've rated this book 0 stars, I would have.
Stuart Woods has been going downhill for quite some time now with both of his series. Holly was the better of the two, although he ruined her when he teamed her up with Stone. This book, however, is the end of the line.
The ridiculousness is jaw-dropping. Among the idiocies you come across:
- Holly attends CIA training and is allowed to bring her dog. Not only bring her, but the dog is allowed to go everywhere with her -- including the cafeteria
- There's terrorist activity in NY, so after about two days, the director of the CIA decides that Holly's class no longer needs training and sends them up to NY to work the case
- Holly is such a star pupil that not only does she work the case, but she becomes assistant to the head honcho and supervises people
- She takes a walk down Park Avenue, decides that she might like to live there, and within about 24 hours, she's found a place, been approved by the board, signed the papers and moved in
- When she feels like getting a little nooky with Stone, all she has to do is call her superior and they call her guards off -- even though the bad guy has made her as an agent and lives nearby
- In the middle of this major case and a few weeks on the job, she just breezes into her boss' office and receives a few days vacation effective immediately because her Dad wants to come visit her
The list goes on and on. It's like Woods was thumbing his nose at his readers -- "Let's see how ridiculous I can get because you all will still buy my books!" No, Stu, I won't. You've been an arrogant, pompous windbag for far too long now, and your books officially stink. I'm done with you.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
compelling and entertaining cat and mouse caper, September 28, 2005
Teddy Fay Worked for the CIA for forty years, eventually becoming a Tech Services coordinator and when he retired, he erased all his files in the Agency's computers. They have no pictures or fingerprints of the man who disappeared with astonishing ease. He started killing Right Wing politician including the Speaker of the House and when he was close to being caught, he blew up the plance he was flying and jumped out into the ocean.
While the FBI and CIA think he is dead, Teddy relocates to New York when he starts killing terrorists, the enemies of America as he calls them. A joint FBI-CIA task force is formed and one of the CIA members is Holly Barker, the former Chief of Police in Orchid Beach, Florida. They recruited her and she eagerly grabbed the chance to become an operative. She is the only agent to see Holly and she is in the forefront of the investigation as Teddy tries to avoid the agents while continuing on his mission.
The antagonist is the focus and the star of IRON ORCHID as he calmly hacks into CIA and FBI computers with the help of an inside source. Readers will be simultaneously drawn to and repelled by this character who marches to his own drummer. The protagonist takes to her CIA training like a duck to water and is able to carry her share of the work load on her uses first case as an agent. Stuart Woods has written a compelling and entertaining cat and mouse caper.
Harriet Klausner
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Holly and the CIA, April 14, 2006
There was a time when I could turn to Stuart Woods and know I would get a lightweight but well-written thriller. In recent years, however, Woods has remained lightweight but his writing has gone downhill. His recent Stone Barrington novels have been minimally entertaining and his latest standalone novel, The Prince of Beverly Hills, was equally mediocre. The one ray of sunshine in his recent works has been Holly Barker novels, and in Iron Orchid, we get Woods at his recent best: not really good, but a cut above his non-Barker works.
As the story opens, Teddy Fay, the villain from Capitol Crimes is back and on the run from the FBI and CIA; he fakes his death which buys him a little time, but soon enough the authorities are after them again. Meanwhile, Holly Barker has quit her small-town police job and has joined the CIA; her training is cut short when she gets involved with the hunt for Fay. Most of the novel is a cat-and-mouse game, with Fay a step or two ahead, evading Holly and company and at the same time, committing a string of assassins. Since Fay is killing suspected terrorists, he is not exactly an entirely unsympathetic character.
There are plenty of things wrong with this book, flaws that have been a distinct Woods trait for a while. Typically, most of these problems come from the shallowness of the story and its characters. The only two characters with any real substance are Holly and Fay, and since they rarely interact, we get no really good interplay between the two of them. In fact, there is little in the way of real suspense, at least as far as the heroes are concerned: since Fay only kills "bad guys", Holly is in no real danger (a brief side plot involving the threat of a CIA instructor goes nowhere). Actually, the only suspense involves Fay as he is the only one in real danger; in a certain way, that makes him the protagonist in this novel. There are also bits of silliness that take away any potential realism in this novel; for example, the idea that Holly could bring her dog with her to CIA training seems a bit implausible. The ending of the story will probably also be dissatisfying to many.
I continue to read Woods, because he was good once and I keep hoping he will be again. I think his biggest problem is that he is writing too fast (it seems like he's doing two novels a year) and it shows. His latest books seem hastily written. Iron Orchid may be better than other recent Woods fare, but it is not a novel I can recommend; I'm giving it a low three stars, and probably only rating it that high to distinguish it from his other books. If you want to read Stuart Woods, read his early stuff: it's entertaining and well-written. His more recent books are just fast, empty reads.
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