{"product_id":"9780061013416","title":"Orchid Beach (Holly Barker Series #1)","description":"  \u003cp\u003eA Woman's Best Friend—and Most Lethal Weapon\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author Stuart Woods delivers a riveting thriller that introduces an exciting addition to the pantheon of fictional sleuths. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eForced into early retirement at thirty-seven, smart, attractive, and fiercely independent Major Holly Barker trades in her bars as a military cop for the badge of deputy chief of police in Orchid Beach, Florida. But below the sunny surface of this sleepy, well-to-do island town lies an evil that escalates into the cold-blooded murder of one of Holly's new colleagues. An outsider, Holly has little to go on for answers and no one to help her—except Daisy, a Doberman of exceptional intelligence and loyalty that becomes her companion and protector. The closer she gets to the truth, the more Holly knows that it'll take one smart dog with guts to sniff out this killer—before he can catch her first. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAuthor Biography: 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e 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, beganwork 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.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe completed the race in good form, taking forty-five days, and in 1977 his memoir of the Irish period, \u003ci\u003eBlue Water, Green Skipper\u003c\/i\u003e  was published in London and New York.  While sporadically working on the novel, he completed another book, \u003ci\u003eA Romantic's Guide to the Country Inns of Britain and Ireland,\u003c\/i\u003e  published in 1979.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eChiefs\u003c\/i\u003e, Woods' long-awaited novel, was published in 1981 to wide critical and popular acclaim, garnering excellent reviews and winning the Edgar Allan Poe Award.  \u003ci\u003eChiefs\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eOrchid Beach\u003c\/i\u003e is Stuart Woods' eighteenth novel.  His previous books, \u003ci\u003eRun Before the Wind\u003c\/i\u003e (1983), \u003ci\u003eDeep Lie\u003c\/i\u003e (1986), \u003ci\u003eUnder the Lake\u003c\/i\u003e (1987), \u003ci\u003eWhite Cargo\u003c\/i\u003e (1988), \u003ci\u003eGrass Roots\u003c\/i\u003e (1989), \u003ci\u003ePalindrome and New York Dead\u003c\/i\u003e (1989), \u003ci\u003eSanta Fe Rules\u003c\/i\u003e (1991), \u003ci\u003eL.A. Times\u003c\/i\u003e (1992), \u003ci\u003eDead Eyes\u003c\/i\u003e (1993), \u003ci\u003eHeat\u003c\/i\u003e (1994), \u003ci\u003eImperfect Strangers\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eChoke\u003c\/i\u003e (1995), \u003ci\u003eDirt\u003c\/i\u003e (1996),  \u003ci\u003eDead in the Water\u003c\/i\u003e (1997) and \u003ci\u003eSwimming to Catalina\u003c\/i\u003e  (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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStuart Woods lives on the the Treasure Coast of Florida and Litchfield County, Connectict.  He still flies his own plane, and sails.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47015567229168,"sku":"9780061013416","price":7.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780061013416_p0.jpg?v=1763620597","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780061013416","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}