Book Review: The Dirt On Mrs. Dart

Dirt is an interesting crime novel from the late Stuart Woods and features Stone Barrington, who is a somewhat strange combination of attorney and private investigator.

This is a pretty lengthy series which is still continuing with the aid of ghost writers. This particular novel was written by the man himself and published in 1996.

A syndicated gossip columnist named Amanda Dart is being harassed by faxes that expose some of her extracurricular activities. Her reputation is on the line, and Amanda isn’t used to being the one on the receiving end of embarrassing revelations. She turns to Stone Barrington for some help in identifying the perpetrators. Barrington is an ex-police detective who retired early and joined the legal profession. He now works somewhat unique cases for a law firm and does well. Stone contends with some dangerous people to help his seductively headstrong client, but he is certainly no stranger to trouble. An old friend gets murdered during the investigation, and Stone is even more motivated to run these miscreants down.

The plot itself is pretty compelling. Amanda Dart is certainly not in a panic about her situation, but she is kind of hard to sympathize with. Barrington is pretty sharp and fairly interesting as a lead character, but there isn’t that much to make him stand out in the pantheon of fictional detectives.

I am not sure if this is a regular component in a Stuart Woods novel, but I was caught a bit flat-footed by the gratuitous sex going on, particularly at the beginning. At the risk of coming off as a bit prudish, I found some of these scenes a bit jarring and distracting. I think Woods would have done better to allow more to be left to the imagination.

Even Barrington was displaying some remarkably poor judgment when it came to a couple of these liaisons.

As far as writing style, Woods is competent with his prose. It’s an easy read but not so much so that it seems insulting.

Other than the random sex scenes, there is not much that I will find memorable about this particular literary venture.

A couple of months ago, I was in a bookstore where a signing was occurring, and I went ahead and bought one from a local writer. I think it’s time to allow author Tierney James to introduce me to a An Unlikely Hero.