Lucid Intervals

Tony Roberts strikes just the right note in his reading of Woods's latest Barrington Stone adventure. Stone unwillingly takes on as a client the perpetually clueless trouble magnet Herbie Fisher, who has just come into several million dollars of lottery money. In addition, Stone is hired by Felicity Devonshire of British Intelligence to try and find an ex-agent who may, or may not, have resurfaced after 12 years under a new identity. As the story unfolds (and his clients multiply), Stone wonders if any amount of money is worth the trouble he runs into. Filling the story with thrills, titters, and titillation, Woods moves the story along, and Roberts keeps pace with him step for step. He delivers the author's prose with a wry arch of an eyebrow that tells the listener to sit back and enjoy the ride, but don't take it all too seriously. A Putnam hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 15). (May)