Kisser

A Stone Barrington Novel

By: Stuart Woods

Narrated by: Tony Roberts

Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

Stone Barrington is back in this thrilling new page-turner from the perennially entertaining New York Times best-selling author.

Stone Barrington is back in New York, and after a rather harrowing sojourn in Key West, he's looking to stay closer to home and work on some simple divorce and custody cases for Woodman & Weld. But when he crosses paths with a fetching Broadway actress - and sometime lip model - Stone gets a little more deeply involved with business than he'd expected. When his new lady love turns out to be a lady with a shady past, Stone and downtown cop Dino Bacchetti realize that her beauty may have an unusually high price.

More mayhem? Listen to all of our Stone Barrington mysteries.

©2009 Stuart Woods (P)2009 Penguin

Critic reviews

“POW!!! He’s back with more twists and trysts.” (The Mystery Reader)

“Entertaining...Woods devises plenty of snarls to provoke laughs and keep the action interesting in a series that excels at playing out male fantasies.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

“A fun, breezy page-turner.” (Booklist)

Didn't Listen

Mr. Woods must be getting older and unsure of his "performance". He seems to be trying too hard to keep a reputation going with his character, Stone Barrington. I should have taken the reviews seriously. I would have liked to book better if it had more story and less bragging.

A waste of time and money

I've been working my way through the entire series. The early books were good. The last few struggled to be okay. This one was simply bad. No plot. Stone has become a joke of a character. Entirely unbelievable. Unfortunately, I didn't check the other reviews first. I wish I had.

Oops, I Did It Again

I now have the dubious distinction of having "read" all of Stuart Woods audiobooks, first to last, in order. Chiefs was exceptional and implanted in me the hope that at least one of the subsequent books would measure up. They never did and this is no exception. The characters' voices (their language not the tone of the narrator) were still more akin to my grandmothers era.

Of course, every character is still rich, super hot, overwhelmingly lucky, and engage in close, intense sexual relationships without much preamble... Let's go to Elaine's, have steak and Knob Creek, then shag like bunnies.. Oh and what was your name again? Fine, once. Twice, OK. But multiple times per book across a very long series, no friggin way. Wilt Chamberlain didn't shag that often.

Oh wait, also everyone has their own private plane. Everyone has a direct line to the President and the head of the CIA. Everyone drives a Mercedes, even as a rental car. Really, which Hertz is this again? Anyway, my plan (mostly because it seems like Stuart Woods approach too) is to copy and paste this review across several books. I read them all. They are all the same. So they deserve the same review.

Why did I read them all, you might ask. Chiefs was fantastic. There were glimmers of hope here and there in the early going with series protagonists Stone, Eddie, Holly, Will, etc. They were as entertaining as reruns of later Love Boat episodes. You always know exactly what you're going to get. You don't have to worry about nuance or complexity or even real adversity. Perfect as a beach or road trip read, because it won't matter if you lose your place or fall asleep (not recommended for the driver in the road trip scenario).

If you want better, try Lee Child or Harlan Coben series. Both are much more believable. Early David Baldacci too. For non-series works, try Linwood Barclay. If anyone else agrees with my assessments and thinks I'm missing out on other alternatives, please post them.

Really, really bad

Kisser, is a no story, story. It has no plot to get into the way of the non-stop sex and the humor is so lame that most of us out grew the little bit which was attempted, in high school. If you have any trouble figuring out what is coming next in the narration, you need to have your mystery readers license revoked.

I normally love Stone Barrington stories - I would not wish this one on my worse enemy.

x rated, cheap

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

If we could have listened to an actual story, instead of what seemed like cheap B rated porn flick.

What do you think your next listen will be?

Anything but, Stewart Woods books.

What about Tony Roberts’s performance did you like?

He always does a great job of bringing yhe characters to life.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Kisser?

All the sex scenes. They don't add to the "story'".

Any additional comments?

I'be read most of Woods' books and it seems with each new release there is more sex and he portrays women more & more as nothing but whores & sex objects. Maybe he hates women. I'm done with this author. I have no plans to read any more of his books.

Oh Puhleeze

If I wanted to listen to porn I'd buy porn. Poor Plot and an even worse reader. I've always liked Woods, but this was over the top. Is Woods following a recipe as all his books seem to have the same ingredients. Definitely not a mystery or thriller. Woods must need the money to be putting out this kind of garbage. No more Woods for me.Don't bother getting this book.

Trashing Stone Barrington

Woods has trashed the elegant Stone and made him into a sexual freak, along with every woman he meets. If he wants to learn how to write about sex he should read Sandra Brown. Shame on you Stuart Woods.
Don W