What do You think about Two Dollar Bill (2005)?
A fun and thrilling ride until halfway through when the body count undermines the lightness. This is the 11th of the series of 22 featuring Stone Barrington, a loveable scoundrel and a former cop turned NYC lawyer who never has much trouble finding trouble or romance. This time he cruises along romancing the new District Attorney and cavorting nightly at fancy Elaine�s until he takes on a new rich Texan client who proves to be more than just an outrageous con-man. The dangerous cascade that emerges threatens a lot of Stone�s dear ones and calls for a lot of help from his special friends in the police and CIA and some over the top crisis scenarios. Sort of a James Bond meets "The Perils of Pauline".
—Michael
This was a typical Stone Barrington book. The action sequence in the last 100 pages was a little over the top for action, cop inter-agency slips, a too smart adversary with such well executed plans that the novel became almost like a Cussler superhero action sequence.Tiffany as an Attorney general turning on Stone was not handled well. She was used as a 2d cardboard character to decorate the scenery and page fill up to the halfway point.Stone as an action hero that ends up as the sole focal point of the final action sequence while he pilots a helicopter under duress to save his son, also leads to a character stretch of the super-smooth, womanizing attorney who likes fine food and is more familiar with touches of the upscale lifestyle than with hard cold realities of a buffed action hero in a stressful performance.Bringing in Stone's son, particularly into the action sequence, just doesn't fit the Stone character that dances through legal hurdles and jumps jurisdictional loopholes while handling women in stunning soft porn fashion and doesn't have any pretense of a desire to adopt or maintain a blissful domestic relationship.With the negatives taken into account, the first 75% of this is still a light fun Stone read. It fits the standard pulp production size of 300 pages and can be easily read in 4 to 6 hours, and you may feel entertained, while not being preached at or ask to become a cult follower of unusual lead characters.
—Joe White
I stopped reading Stone Barrington after the ridiculous and unsexy L. A. Dead, then gave him another try a year later with Dirty Work, which was more of the same. I stayed away almost two years this time. This book was still ridiculous, but with a wink, the author nearly comes right out and says he knows his plots are unbelievable. I've given up trying to remember Stone's history—romantic and otherwise—maybe that helps. (I'm pretty sure I've missed several books along the way.) This reader pronounces the name of Stone's former partner differently than the reader I've listened to before; that was slightly distracting.
—Karen
