Customer Reviews

Orchid Blues

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Orchid Beach Police Chief, Holly Barker, is working on a bank robbery and murder that's hit close to home, and turned very personal. The well planned crime was almost perfectly executed, and the thieves didn't leave a shred of evidence behind, except for the body of an innocent bystander. Now they're four million dollars richer, and Holly is on a mission to find the culprits and bring them to justice. As she begins investigating what appears to be an inside job, she discovers evidence that points to an unknown little town inhabited by a mysterious and closed-mouth group of gun lovers. With the help of an old FBI friend, and her father, retired Army chief master sergeant, Ham, the three decide to infiltrate this clan, and find out what's really going on..... Stuart Woods' latest is a silly and mindless read that goes nowhere. The writing is uninspired, the dialogue, inane, and the story line thin, and neither suspenseful nor very compelling. This book needs to be tightened up and given some direction. His characters are lifeless and one dimensional, and need to be fleshed out. At times, it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys, and even harder to care. Mr Woods' all time favorite character, Stone Barrington, makes a cameo appearance, but it's never clear why he's there, and he adds nothing to the plot. Add to that a predictable ending, with a lot of loose ends left hanging, and you have the makings of a mediocre novel, at best. There are a lot of great thrillers out there, unfortunately Orchid Blues isn't one of them.

Just as two heads are better than one two voices, those of Dick Hill and Susie Breck, beat one in this satisfying reading of the second adventure of Police Chief Holly Barker and her erstwhile companion, Daisy, an unbelievable Doberman.

Holly isn't thinking work but wedding as she's about to tie the knot with her boyfriend, Jackson Oxenhandler. The path to the altar turns rocky when a crime occurs - a bank robbery in Orchid Beach, Florida, and a vicious one at that as the thieves take everything with them except for a dead body.

Her investigation takes Holly and her father, Ham, a retired Army sergeant to a rather strange town, Lake Winachobee. Despite its name not much is placid in this little burg as it turns out to be a hotbed of white supremacists who are planning the assassination of an important leader.

Stuart Woods has once again proffered a rapid fire plot and a stunning conclusion.

- Gail Cooke

"Chiefs" was a terrific novel, richly detailed and with fully-fleshed out characters you could really care about. The plotting was intricate and believable - in short, a great, satisfying read, and I looked forward to much more of the same from this author.
Unfortunately, he is turning out to be a one-trick pony, as everything he's written since a great beginning has been glib, facile and formulaic. One dimensional, unlikeable characters for the most part (Stone Barrington is a pleasure-loving sybarite who'd screw his brother's wife if he had the opportunity) and flat, unexciting stories.
I hate to see it. Writers with real talent are rare, and Stuart Woods used to be one of the best. Now he's become something much less.
I don't think I'll be reading any more of his books.

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.

I had hoped that ORCHID BLUES would be on a par with Stone Barrington, but alas, it is not. It is a quick read but there is no real character development and I think Woods does himself and his readers a dis-service. The characters are so poorly drawn that I lost interest in them very quickly. This book is ordinary... I can't recommend it.

I usually find Stuart Woods' novels fast-paced fun. This sequel to ORCHID BEACH (which I enjoyed) is silly and...what's worse...sloppy. Did Woods dash this one off over a weekend? Characters actually contradict themselves, forget things they said earlier in the novel, and ramble unedited. Loose ends abound.

On top of that, the bad guys are just another stereotyped bunch of "right-wing racist militiamen." These baddies went out of style and became hackneyed several years ago. No motivation, no persoanlity, no menace.

I looked forward to this book. What a disappointment! Skip it.

Stuart Woods used to be one of my favorite 'read in one sitting' writers. Now, he's just turning out so much pulp fiction. ORCHID BEACH is a perfect example of his pulp and, frankly, I'm tired of reading it.....I won't be buying any more Woods.

I agree with the reviewer who had issues with that diatribe at the end of the book where he instructs readers on how to/not to contact him.....he's fallen into the trap of believing his own publicity machine.

The writing is second-rate...the chapters are short and choppy...the subject matter, while interesting, is so contrived and formulatic (is there such a word) that the whole effort is reduced to the ridiculous.

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..

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@.

I really enjoyed this author when I started reading him, and I was happy to see the introduction of a new line of characters in "Orchid Beach." However, it seems that with each effort Mr. Woods puts out lately, they just keep going downhill.

There is nothing at all realistic about this book. As a matter of fact, there's nothing that you can even stretch your imagination to believe. Holly's fiancee is killed on the way to their wedding and she barely sheds a tear. Ham is basically able to show up in a little central Florida town one day and suddenly he's the main marksman for a militia group, making a hit on a VIP, while one of the former leaders of the group is suspected of being a spy because of all the suspicious goings-on that suddenly started happening right around when Ham showed up. Huh?

The dialogue also sounds like it was written by a 12-year-old. Characters constantly to refer to each other by name in every sentence, and we're subjected to ridiculously long descriptions of dinner menus and word-for-word phone conversations to get a single point across. And when the author wants us to know something, he inexplicably has the characters telling each other very obvious things -- for example, as Ham is getting ready to make his hit, John is explaining their escape plan and says, "And, of course, you're wearing your disguise." Ham doesn't know he's wearing a disguise and has to be told? Certainly there had to be a better way for Mr. Woods to let readers know Ham was in disguise than something this inane.

And, as I've seen mentioned in other reviews, I found the "Author's Note" at the end of the book offensive, where the author instructs readers on what they may and may not write to him about, and informs them that unless they contact him via e-mail, they will not receive a response because he basically can't be bothered. I'm sure that sounds very warm and welcoming to readers who may not own a computer or know how to operate one.

The Stone Barrington series has gone way downhill since it started, and this one seems to be headed in the same direction. Perhaps Mr. Woods should come down off his high opinion of himself and actually put a bit of effort into any future books...or I'm sure I won't be the only one who drops both of these series.