Stuart Woods's lean, taut thrillers typically feature a helping of Hollywood glitz along with a suave, sophisticated hero who gets his man and usually the girl, too. His newest is a convincing variation on that formula, featuring an eminently decent, likable hero we've met before in a couple of legal thrillers (Run Before the Wind, Grass Roots). Now Will Lee is a senator from Georgia with somewhat ambivalent aspirations to the presidency; think Bill Clinton with a stronger moral center and a more conventional marriage, to a smart, sexy wife named Kate, who happens to be a high-ranking CIA executive. When the sitting vice president, who's slated to be the party's standard-bearer in the upcoming election, tells Will in confidence that he's just been diagnosed with early Alzheimer's disease, Will decides to make the run of the title. That's good news for an imprisoned former CIA agent (think Aldrich Ames) who was Kate Lee's mentor in the agency; he knows his only possible chance for a pardon is Will's election, and he has enough dirt on the senator's rivals to blackmail them into getting out of the way. Throw in a right-wing fanatic with a long-standing grudge against Will and a determination to assassinate him before he can make it to the White House, and you have all the ingredients for a successful run at the bestseller list. But while Woods's many fans will cheer for both the author and his protagonist, that may not be enough to vault this one to the top; Will doesn't seem to have the requisite fire in the belly, and neither does Woods in what is ultimately a fairly tepid read. --Jane Adams


From Publishers Weekly
The prolific Woods returns to his roots with an unexceptional new episode in his Lee family saga, a series dormant since 1989. Will and Kate Lee, now a Washington power couple, decide to go for broke in their service to the country. Will, a popular senator from Georgia, jumps into the race for the presidency, while Kate, a deputy director at the CIA, cheers him on. Will is for the most part about as likable as a politician can be, and boasts impeccable Democratic stripes. The Republicans try to stir up trouble by rehashing Will's sexual dalliance with a movie star nearly a decade earlier and raise questions about his competency as a lawyer on a rape and murder case many years ago. Will deflects those charges, but other problems are brewing. The candidate's liberal leanings are anathema to a right-wing militia group from Idaho, whose leader, Zeke Tennant, tracks Will from one campaign stop to another with a duffel bag full of weapons. In a final showdown, Tennant makes one last assassination attempt, this time while Will debates his Democratic primary challenger at Ford's Theater in the nation's capital. This fourth entry in the Lee family story, launched in 1981 with the Edgar-winning Chiefs, sparks from time to time but never catches fire. Lee would probably make a great president, but as a character he's all smooth surface, no edge and not very compelling. Worse, his run for the presidency lacks any real suspense. The assassin is too much of a bumbler to take seriously, and the Republicans' dirty tricks fizzle out quickly. For edge-of-the-seat drama, Woods (Worst Fears Realized) tries to inject energy into the uncertainty of the delegate-counting process at the party convention. Even political junkies won't get a rise out of that. (June) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
From Chiefs to Grass Roots to The Run: popular Woods protagonist Sen. Will Lee gets ready for the presidency. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
The "run" of the title is Senator Will Lee's last-ditch run for the presidency of the United States, as political circumstances force his hand and as his every move is being tracked by a militia assassin. The story is loaded with thrills. But the plot is filled with clichés, two-dimensional characters, and farfetched coincidences that impede serious suspension of disbelief. The script suffers from uneven abridgment, resulting in large gaps in Woods's original story line, which run the listener aground. Ken Howard delivers the story with a masculine touch, even tempo, and smooth pace. The result is a highbrow adventure novel that will satisfy as long as the listener doesn't ask too many questions. S.E.S. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
In this sequel to Grass Roots (1989), Woods gives us another strong and suspenseful political thriller. The novel's premise is certainly unusual, perhaps even slightly contrived: first, the vice-president of the U.S. reveals that he has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease; shortly thereafter, the president suffers a stroke that puts him in a coma, and the vice-president is forced to assume the presidency. Now Senator Will Lee is faced with a tough choice: announce his own candidacy for the presidency in 2000, or hold off in anticipation of taking over the vice-presidency. In lesser hands, this novel might have collapsed under the weight of its own setup, but Woods is a careful, talented writer, and he makes his unlikely premise seem entirely plausible. What follows is a clever, well-constructed story of political ambition and behind-the-scenes skulduggery that should please not only Woods' fans but anyone who loves good political fiction. Although the novel doesn't have the depth or intensity of Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men, there are echoes here of that Pulitzer Prize^-winning classic, as there are of Allen Drury's ever-popular political melodrama, Advise and Consent. A smart, satisfying thriller that offers a timely and shrewd assessment of the American political process. David Pitt


Chicago Tribune
"Woods is a no-nonsense, slam-bang storyteller."


Boston Globe
"He tells a terrific yarn."


Book Description
A respected senator from Georgia, Will Lee has aspirations of more.But a cruel stroke of fate thrusts him onto the national stage well before he expects, and long before he's ready, for a national campaign.The road to the White House, however, will be more treacherous -- and deadly -- than Will and his intelligent, strikingly beautiful wife, Kate, an associate director in the Central Intelligence Agency, can imagine. A courageous and principled man, Will soon learns he has more than one opponent who wants him out of the race. Thrust into the spotlight as never before, he's become the target of clandestine enemies from the past who will use all their money and influence to stop him -- dead. Now Will isn't just running for president -- he's running for his life.


From the Publisher
6 1.5-hour cassettes


About the Author
Stuart Woods was born in Manchester, Georgia, a small town in the American South.He was educated in the local schools and at the University of Georgia, where he graduated with a BA degree in 1959.He served in the United States Air Force, in which he says he "...flew a truck," as an enlisted man during the Berlin Wall crisis of 1961-62. He devoted his early adult years to a career in advertising , as an award-winning writer for agencies in New York and London.It was while living in London in 1973 that he decided to pursue an ambition held since childhood, to write fiction.he moved to a flat in the stable yard of a castle in south County Galway, Ireland, and while working two days a week for a Dublin ad agency to support himself, began work on a novel.Shortly after beginning, he discovered sailing and , as he puts it, "Everything went to hell."The novel was put temporarily aside while he spent all his time, "...racing an eleven foot plywood dinghy against small children, losing regularly." In the autumn of 1974, a friend invited him to help ferry a small yacht up the west coast of Ireland, and the bug bit even harder.Shortly thereafter, his grandfather died, leaving him "...just enough money to get into debt for a boat," and he immediately decided to go to the 1976 Observer Single-handed Transatlantic Race (OSTAR).He moved to a gamekeeper's cottage on a river above Cork Harbour and had a boat built at a nearby boatyard.He studied navigation and sailed on other people's boats every chance he got, then, after completing a 1300-mile qualifying voyage from the Azores to Ireland, he persuaded the Race Committee to accept him as an Irish entry. He completed the race in good form, taking forty-five days, and in 1977 his memoir of the Irish period, Blue Water, Green Skipperwas published in London and New York.While sporadically working on the novel, he completed another book, A Romantic's Guide to the Country Inns of Britain and Ireland,published in 1979.Chiefs, Woods' long-awaited novel, was published in 1981 to wide critical and popular acclaim, garnering excellent reviews and winning the Edgar Allan Poe Award.Chiefs was filmed for television as a six-hour drama starring Charlton Heston.Following his success with that novel, Woods published a string of fiction that established him as one of the most popular writers in the world.Orchid Beach is Stuart Woods' eighteenth novel.His previous books, Run Before the Wind (1983), Deep Lie (1986), Under the Lake (1987), White Cargo (1988), Grass Roots (1989), Palindrome and New York Dead (1989), Santa Fe Rules (1991), L.A. Times (1992), Dead Eyes (1993), Heat (1994), Imperfect Strangers and Choke (1995), Dirt (1996),Dead in the Water (1997) and Swimming to Catalina(1998) have been translated into Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Japanese, and Hebrew and there are millions of copies of his books in print around the world. Several of Stuart Woods' novels have been optioned for feature films and television movies. Stuart Woods lives on the the Treasure Coast of Florida and Litchfield County, Connectict.He still flies his own plane, and sails.

FROM OUR EDITORS

As I've mentioned before, Stuart Woods started his career at the top. Not necessarily in terms of sales or recognition, but certainly in terms of ambition and achievement.

Chiefs, a murder story that spans three generations in the American South, is just about as good as crime fiction gets. I can't think of another historical crime novelist, in fact, who takes the chances Woods does with this one. And he pulls them off.

In some ways, Woods's latest novel, The Run, returns to his roots, involving as it does the Lee family of both Run Before the Wind and Grass Roots. If this novel doesn't have the depth of the former or the sheer brute passion of the latter, it is nonetheless a quick, clever, and shrewd take on our political system involving a vice president with Alzheimer's and a comatose president. Not exactly a slow news day.

Our hero, and the man who must decide how to steer a course through these turbulent and muddy waters, is Senator Will Lee, who wants to be president himself. He has some tough decisions to make. Woods is particularly good at showing us the mixture of ego, cunning, and fear that goes into making the kind of decision that can end a political career if the least thing goes wrong. Talk about night sweats.

Woods has spent the last several years writing popcorn thrillers of a very high order. Lots of cliffhangers, lots of glitz, lots of derring-do. If you think making these things work is easy, try it sometime. Woods is an adroit craftsman.

The Run combines some of the dark introspection of Grass Roots with the dash of the recent thrillers. The fusion is a fetching one; it turns into one hell of a good read, and a very serious look at the fragile state of our political system now that it has been turned over to consultants and talking heads.

A very enjoyable and accomplished book.

—Ed Gorman

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A respected senator from Georgia, Will Lee has aspirations of more. But a cruel stroke of fate thrusts him onto the national stage well before he expects, and long before he's ready, for a national campaign.

The road to the White House, however, will be more treacherous — and deadly — than Will and his intelligent, strikingly beautiful wife, Kate, an associate director in the Central Intelligence Agency, can imagine. A courageous and principled man, Will soon learns he has more than one opponent who wants him out of the race. Thrust into the spotlight as never before, he's become the target of clandestine enemies from the past who will use all their money and influence to stop him — dead. Now Will isn't just running for president — he's running for his life.

FROM THE CRITICS

Barnes & Noble Guide to New Fiction

From best-selling author Woods, comes a "lively political potboiler" featuring a presidential hopeful, a web of "venal politicians, cult crazies, and moral conundrums, all pitched at the reader with masterful timing." "A perfect election-year beach read." A sole dissenting reviewer called it a "good read, but doesn't quite reach the boiling point."

Chicago Tribune

Woods is a no-nonsense, slam-bang storyteller.

Boston Globe

He tells a terrific yarn.

Boston Globe

He tells a terrific yarn.

Chicago Tribune