"Teaming up of the protagonists from Stuart Woods' two series"

When Holly Barker, Chief of the Orchid Beach Police in Florida travels to New York to apprehend a fugitive, she contacts Stone Barrington who invites her to stay at his home. They met when Stone witnessed a bank robbery in which Holly's fiancé was killed. Trini Rodriguez, who is part of the Mafia, is wanted in the murder of over a dozen people after he bombed a church. Holly couldn't keep him behind bars because Trini was a very important informant who the FBI put in the Witness Protection Program.

Holly hopes to find him in New York City and arrest him on a fugitive warrant but the FBI wants her to hold off on serving it until Trini's infiltrates an Arab terrorist cell so the government can arrest them on information the thugs delivers. After the cell is broken up the FBI spirit Trini away with Stone and Holly trailing them all over the country to hand down the warrant. While perusing Trini and company, Holly and Stone begin a hot and steamy affair that gets her mind off of her obsessive need to find her criminal.

In RECKLESS ABANDON, the FBI comes across as bumbling idiots who can't shake a tail or keep their informant hidden. The fact that they are willing to protect him after he killed over a dozen innocents will enrage readers as much as it does Holly. The teaming up of the protagonists from Stuart Woods' two series works so well together, it is to be hoped that they will pair up in future novels

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted March 15, 2004

Summary

Cop-turned-lawyer Stone Barrington tracks a mobster hiding deep inside the witness protection program in this next thriller in the New York Times-bestselling series. Stone Barrington is, once again, right at home in New York City; but this time he is joined by the tenacious Holly Barker from Orchid Blues, the lady police chief of Orchid Island, Florida. In Reckless Abandon, Holly finally makes it to Manhattan, hot on the trail of an evil fugitive from her jurisdiction. Stone is, well, glad to see her, right up until the moment when her presence creates a great danger to both of them-and to their surprise, she becomes the pursued, not the pursuer.