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Coming on the heels of his bestselling Choke, and Imperfect Strangers, Stuart Woods brings back one of his best loved characters, Stone Barrington, who most recently appears in New York Dead, in a fast paced, rollercoaster ride through the high-profile world of celebrity gossip.

Feared and disliked for both her poison pen and ice queen persona, bi-coastal gossip columnist Amanda Dart finds the tables have turned. The unwitting victim of an anonymous gossipmonger who is faxing to national opinion makers an outrageous scandal sheet revealing the details of her on-going indiscretions with a nationally known takeover artist, Amanda enlists the help of New York lawyer and investigator Stone Barrington to learn the identity of the faxer. Everybody is a suspect in the world of tabloid journalism. As the faxes grow more scathing and begin to expose the peccadilloes of not only Amanda but other members of the gossip community, Barrington winds up with more leads than he can handle, and an employer who is about to take matters dangerously into her own hands. The world of gossip is turned on its head. It becomes clear to Stone that even the most respected members of the social scene will stop at nothing - even murder - to clear their names.

Irresistible as only good gossip can be, Dirt is a mesmerising tale of betrayal and murder set against a backdrop of the fast-paced Manhattan tabloid business; it is filled with the twists and turns that have made Stuart Woods's novels international hits.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from September 2, 1996
      It may be his fifth novel in three years, but this slickly entertaining suspenser displays Woods at the top of his game with no signs of flagging. A sizable supporting cast of paparazzi-challenged beautiful people share the action as Stone Barrington, the suave ex-cop attorney-hero of New York Dead, makes his comeback. In this superbly paced tale, Stone gets involved in a blackmail scheme involving Amanda Dart, a much-feared, nationally syndicated gossip columnist. After Amanda is photographed in bed in a Manhattan hotel with a married real-estate magnate, a fax headlined "DIRT" and presenting both the photo and details of Amanda's tryst is sent to a weighty list of prominent people and major media outlets. The DIRT fax-web quickly expands to snare the gay but closeted editor of a sleazy L.A. tabloid. When Stone is hired by Amanda to sniff out who's spilling the pearls about these jealously guarded privacies, one of his operatives, a retired N.Y.C. cop, is murdered. The intrigue deepens when one of the perps is identified as closely resembling a male model in a Vanity Fair cologne ad. Dripping with name-dropping, haute couture and pricey playthings, and spiced with hormonal aerobics as Stone trolls the siren-infested waters of upscale Manhattan, the narrative rockets toward an abrupt but absolutely stunning denouement. Using all his skills here, and subtly reminiscent of the waggish P.G. Wodehouse, Woods delivers a marvelously sophisticated, thoroughly modern old-fashioned read. $275,000 combined (with the simultaneously published HarperPaperback edition of Choke) ad/promo; simultaneous HarperAudio edition; author tour; U.K., translation, dramatic rights: Janklow & Nesbit.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Nasty people who make their fortunes exposing the peccadilloes of the rich and famous become the targets of a blackmailer. Lawyer/investigator Stone Barrington is called in to help gossip columnist Amanda Dart, the most recent target in this glitzy tale of deceit, sexual impropriety and murder. Listening to Muller's rich voice is a delightfully sensuous experience when he's speaking as a male character or as narrator. But his attempts at feminine voices sound feeble. Neither Woods's nor Muller's best work, DIRT will still attract listeners because of their well-deserved popularity. D.T.H. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

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  • English

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