Kisser

At the start of bestseller Woods's entertaining 17th Stone Barrington novel (after Loitering with Intent ), the handsome New York lawyer smoothly picks up Carrie Cox, an aspiring actress who's recently moved from Georgia to New York City, at Elaine's, his favorite Manhattan restaurant. As usual, every beautiful woman Barrington encounters pursues him, including Carrie, art gallery assistant Rita Gammage, U.S. attorney Tiffany Baldwin, and mentally unstable Dolce Bianci, to whom he was once briefly married. In spite of all the female attentions, Barrington manages to shield Carrie from her ex-husband, protect young heiress Hildy Parsons from a con artist/drug dealer, and plot to take down Ponzi scammer Sig Larsen. Too crafty to let Barrington sail unscathed through encounters with women or criminals, Woods devises plenty of snarls to provoke laughs and keep the action interesting in a series that excels at playing out male fantasies. (Jan.)