The Run [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio Cassette]

Stuart Woods (Author), Jonathan Marosz (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 2000

New York Times Bestselling author of Worst Fears Realized

 

Will Lee, the hero of the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Run Before the Wind and Grassroots, has finally established himself at the heart of American government as the respected Senator from his home state of Georgia.

The road to the White House, however, will be more treacherous - and deadly - than Will and his wife, Kate, an associate director in the Central Intelligence Agency, can imagine. A decent, courageous, and principled man, Will soon learns he has more than one opponent with whom he must contend. Thrust into the national spotlight as never before, he becomes the target of clandestine forces from the past who will use all their money and influence to stop him - dead - in his tracks. Now Will isn't just running for president...he's running for his life.

Filled with all the suspense and roller coaster plot twists that have become Stuart Wood's trademark, The Run is this master storyteller at his best.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Stuart Woods's lean, taut thrillers typically feature a helping of Hollywood glitz along with a suave, sophisticated hero who gets his man and usually the girl, too. His newest is a convincing variation on that formula, featuring an eminently decent, likable hero we've met before in a couple of legal thrillers (Run Before the Wind, Grass Roots). Now Will Lee is a senator from Georgia with somewhat ambivalent aspirations to the presidency; think Bill Clinton with a stronger moral center and a more conventional marriage, to a smart, sexy wife named Kate, who happens to be a high-ranking CIA executive. When the sitting vice president, who's slated to be the party's standard-bearer in the upcoming election, tells Will in confidence that he's just been diagnosed with early Alzheimer's disease, Will decides to make the run of the title. That's good news for an imprisoned former CIA agent (think Aldrich Ames) who was Kate Lee's mentor in the agency; he knows his only possible chance for a pardon is Will's election, and he has enough dirt on the senator's rivals to blackmail them into getting out of the way. Throw in a right-wing fanatic with a long-standing grudge against Will and a determination to assassinate him before he can make it to the White House, and you have all the ingredients for a successful run at the bestseller list. But while Woods's many fans will cheer for both the author and his protagonist, that may not be enough to vault this one to the top; Will doesn't seem to have the requisite fire in the belly, and neither does Woods in what is ultimately a fairly tepid read. --Jane Adams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

The prolific Woods returns to his roots with an unexceptional new episode in his Lee family saga, a series dormant since 1989. Will and Kate Lee, now a Washington power couple, decide to go for broke in their service to the country. Will, a popular senator from Georgia, jumps into the race for the presidency, while Kate, a deputy director at the CIA, cheers him on. Will is for the most part about as likable as a politician can be, and boasts impeccable Democratic stripes. The Republicans try to stir up trouble by rehashing Will's sexual dalliance with a movie star nearly a decade earlier and raise questions about his competency as a lawyer on a rape and murder case many years ago. Will deflects those charges, but other problems are brewing. The candidate's liberal leanings are anathema to a right-wing militia group from Idaho, whose leader, Zeke Tennant, tracks Will from one campaign stop to another with a duffel bag full of weapons. In a final showdown, Tennant makes one last assassination attempt, this time while Will debates his Democratic primary challenger at Ford's Theater in the nation's capital. This fourth entry in the Lee family story, launched in 1981 with the Edgar-winning Chiefs, sparks from time to time but never catches fire. Lee would probably make a great president, but as a character he's all smooth surface, no edge and not very compelling. Worse, his run for the presidency lacks any real suspense. The assassin is too much of a bumbler to take seriously, and the Republicans' dirty tricks fizzle out quickly. For edge-of-the-seat drama, Woods (Worst Fears Realized) tries to inject energy into the uncertainty of the delegate-counting process at the party convention. Even political junkies won't get a rise out of that. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: HarperAudio; Unabridged edition (May 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0694523186
• ISBN-13: 978-0694523184
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 4.3 x 2.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (83 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,816,422 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #84 in Books > Books on Cassette > Authors, A-Z > ( W )

More About the Author

Stuart Woods is the author of forty-four novels, including the New York Times-bestselling Stone Barrington series and Holly Barker series. The last twenty-eight of them have been New York Times best-sellers. He is an avid private pilot, flying his own jet on two book tours a year. His latest novel is Santa Fe Edge,to be published on September 21st. You may see his tour schedule and learn more about the author on his website, www.stuartwoods.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Stuart Woods Fan, May 7, 2000

By 

"tsh219" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Run (Hardcover)

I felt compelled to write a review of The Run after reading several reviews of Worst Fears Realized where readers claimed that Mr. Woods was loosing it, and not writing as well as he has in the past.

I was fortunate enough to have gotten hold of a copy of The Run several weeks before its release to the public. (I have an issue with waiting.) For those that claim Mr. Woods is not writing up to par, you MUST read The Run. He is at his very best here, and I believe he is setting us up for something wonderful in the future!

In The Run, Mr. Woods uses characters from one story (Swimming to Catalina, Grass Roots) and incorporates them into another. Something is brewing and I can't wait to find out what it is! Thanks Mr.Woods, I had a blast!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A feather in his cap, July 23, 2000

By 

Linda (Wasilla, AK USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Run (Hardcover)

I have read every one of S. Woods' books, but this one was my first big disappointment. It is obvious Mr. Woods wishes to promote his political agenda, which he has every right to do. But it so overshadowed everything else, that the story line was lost. If making all conservatives look like dishonest morons was his goal, he certainly succeeded in this book.

The story was predictable and certainly not his best, but my enjoyment was also very tainted by his unabashed promotion of the liberal viewpoint as the only intelligent, honest way to go.

Mr. Woods, many of your fans are conservative. Please don't slap us in the face with such one-sided, offensive, and actually untrue writing.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good book on the beach (or plane), July 21, 2000

By 

"--archangel--" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Run (Hardcover)

Sometimes, you just want to pick up a book for fun and lose yourself in it for a few hours. Stuart Woods's THE RUN is the perfect way to kill a few hours on the beach, on a plane, or on the back porch this summer.

To be sure, the plot is nothing spectacular, and for veteran readers of political thrillers, it definitely tends toward the predictable. But Woods does a nice job in keeping the story interesting and giving the reader a good narrative to follow, and it is pretty clear from the structure of the book that Woods has visions of another sequel (authors just LOVE to have their characters become president for some reason). To his credit, Woods does not make the mistake of other authors who have written sequels--having too many "in-jokes" or opaque references to previous events from earlier books. One does not have to read GRASS ROOTS first to enjoy the current offering. My one major complaint about the plot is that it takes several large leaps in time that seem to interrupt the flow of the story, but then Woods's books are not the 900 page epics produced by Clavell or Clancy.

Neither a classic nor a clunker, this book is worth reading, especially during an election year.