Book Review – Double Jeopardy by Stuart Woods
My Rating – 3.5 out of 5
Plot Summary – Double Jeopardy
This is Stuart Woods’ most popular series, the Stone Barrington series. And this one is the 57th book of the series! So yes, Stuart Woods is a prolific writer, and his books make it to the New York Times Bestseller’s list for one week at least. The best part about these novels are how pacy they are – I have finished a few in 4-5 hours of reading, though there is hardly any literary depth to any of the stories but the plots are quite unique, it’s mostly dialogue based and the stories move forward at the speed of express trains.
About the protagonist Stone Barrington – He’s a super rich guy of indeterminate age, ex-CIA, ex-Cop, investor and a lawyer to boot. He buys multi-million dollar mansions for fun and has houses in US and mainland Europe, owns many high end cars and two private jets and uses them to fly to different places as nonchalantly as you and I would cross the road to buy lunch. Every novel he sleeps with different partners, has couple of marriages in the past and no plans of any in the future. His best is Dino Bachetti – Police Commissioner of New York, who can accompany him in his exploits at the drop of a hat!
Coming back to Double Jeopardy – Stone gets the news of release on parole of two of his first cousins, who were serving a term for murdering their parents. The cousins (identical twins, in fact) are also accused in multiple cases of rape and murder but nobody has been able to prove anything. Add to this the fact that the Governor, a family friend, feels leniently towards them, and has pardoned their crimes. As is evident early on, Stone and the twins have no love lost between them, and when they announce their plans to come back and settle in Islesboro, Stone has to take measures to negate their plans.
Stone proceeds to buy their ancestral house before the twins can, moves to Maine with Dino and his wife Viv for a couple of weeks and promptly picks up Pammy, a local, for his company. As the twins move into the island and buy another house, the stage is kind of set for the final confrontation. Meanwhile, the twins are back to their old ways, when the rape another woman and murder her companion. Again, there is no proof to tie them to the crime and Stone manages to bring the assault victim under his wings and make her party to his scheme of vengeance. Thus proceeds the story!
Conclusion – Book Review of Double Jeopardy
The end is near comical, without intending to be so, such is the plot. As I said at the beginning, the story is very shallow to begin with and there are couple of glaring holes in the plot. But since most readers aren’t looking for literary brilliance or inspired storytelling in books of this genre, it wouldn’t matter as it only serves to provide rather mindless entertainment. But mind you, entertaining it is, to a great extent.
So, if you have a lazy day ahead of you with nothing better to read, go ahead and pick up this one. Put you logical mind to sleep and embark on this pacy ride to entertainment. Trust me, on that score you will not be disappointed but if you are looking for something deeper, give it a wide berth!
