If authors are advised to “write what you know,” then Stuart Woods knows…Stuart Woods. With nearly every character and storyline, elements of Woods’ personal biography are cunningly incorporated and easy to spot, if one knows what to look for.

Say he’s placing his most popular character, ex-cop turned lawyer/private detective/CIA consultant, Stone Barrington, at the controls of a private jet taking off from New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport.  Stone can maneuver the craft through even the most turbulent skies because Woods himself is a licensed pilot. Or maybe he’s sending another one of his recurring protagonists, politician Will Lee, from Washington D. C. back to visit his constituents in Delano, Georgia. Woods accurately conveys the lazy, genteel atmosphere of a small Southern town because he himself was born and raised in tiny Manchester, Georgia. Even Lee’s name has Woods family connotations:  Lee was Woods’ birth surname; he legally changed it to Woods, which was his stepfather’s first name, in 1955.

Born in 1938, Woods was educated at the University of Georgia, where he received a B. A. degree in sociology.  He left the South for New York City, hoping to launch a career as a writer for magazines and newspapers.  In reality, he considered himself lucky to land a job as a trainee in an advertising agency, where he eventually worked his way through the ranks to become Creative Director.  Just as the 1960s were hitting their tumultuous peak, however, Woods left New York for London, where he continued to work in advertising until the urge to finally settle down to write the novel he’d been dreaming of since boyhood could no longer be ignored.  Both cities, New York and London, would come to life as settings for future novels.

The author of nearly three dozen novels and two works of nonfiction (now out of print), the prolific Woods has created three successful fiction series as well as several stand-alone mysteries and thrillers, and remains one of contemporary fiction’s best-selling authors.  Beginning with the 1980 novel, Chiefs, in which readers were first introduced to Will Lee, Woods developed Lee’s political career through the subsequent books Grass Roots, Deep Lie, The Run, and Capital Crimes.  It wasn’t until his eighth book, New York Dead, that readers met sexy, debonair detective Stone Barrington and his sidekick, NYC policeman Dino Bacchetti.  Over the course of eleven subsequent novels (the 12th in the series is due out in March), Barrington has gone from a being a disgraced former cop to an international sleuth with a penchant for romance and a proclivity for danger.  Woods’s third series began with Orchid Beach, the name of a small Florida town where ex-military policewoman Holly Barker becomes the town’s chief of police after her predecessor is found with a bullet through his skull.  Here again, Woods, a part-time Florida resident, uses his intimate knowledge of an environment to incorporate the kind of rich details that have won him the loyalty of readers.

Stone Barrington Series

• New York Dead (1991)
• Dirt (1996)  LP, **
• Dead in the Water (1997)  **
• Swimming to Catalina (1998)  **
• Worst Fears Realized (1999)  **
• L. A. Dead (2000)  LP, **, ***
• Cold Paradise (2001)  LP
• The Short Forever (2002)  LP, **
• Dirty Work (2003)  LP
• Reckless Abandon (2004)  LP, **, ***
• Two-dollar Bill (2005)  LP, **, ***
• Dark Harbor (2006)  *

Will Lee Series

• Chiefs (1980)  LP, **
• Run Before the Wind (1983)
• Deep Lie (1986)  LP
• Grass Roots (1989) 
• The Run (2000)  **, ***
• Capital Crimes (2003)  LP, **

Holly Barker Series

• Orchid Beach (1998)  LP, **, ***
• Orchid Blues (2001)  LP
• Blood Orchid (2002)  LP, ***
• Iron Orchid (2005)  LP, ***

Novels

• Under the Lake (1987)         ER
• White Cargo (1988)  **
• Palindrome (1991) 
• Santa Fe Rules (1992)
• Dead Eyes (1994)  **, ***
• Heat (1994)  **
• Imperfect Strangers (1995)  LP
• Choke (1995)  LP
• The Prince of Beverly Hills (2004)