Dirt by Stuart Woods
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Stuart Woods' Stone Barrington lives in a world where what table you get at the fancy restaurant you frequent in New York Matters. And as a result it makes sense for him to care about the wealthy gossip columnist whose sexual exploits are faxed to a short list of important people. Because apparently this Matters, too.
Not to me, of course. I had a desperately hard time caring about anyone in this novel. This is partially by design of course, as it sets up an absolutely charming the-good-guys-are-actually-the-bad-guys twist at the end and of course everyone gets their just desserts. (Uh, spoiler alert...)
For those of you reading this on the blog. This sums it up nicely.
The bright spot in the novel is Stone Barrington himself, the irascible, hyper-sexual lawyer slash detective who gets to poke around the nooks and crannies of Manhattan high society. Unfortunately, there's not much of a mystery for him to unravel. And, of course, Stone Barrington doesn't even make an entrance until quarter of the way through the book. Up until then we get a lengthy introduction to the implausibly lavish lifestyle of the gossip columnist in question. Believe me, 70 pages is a long time to contemplate why we are supposed to care about any of this.
And in the end, I find I don't. It's all very engaging and readable in the moment. There's lots of sex, and the plot moves quickly. But I wish Stone Barrington were solving a mystery that mattered to me.
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