‘Fresh Disasters’ a helluva lot of fun

Editor’s Note: Maine Bound is a column featuring new books written by Maine authors or set in the Pine Tree State.

FRESH DISASTERS, by Stuart Woods, Putnam, New York, 2007, hardcover, 277 pages, $25.95.

When Woods’ lawyer hero Stone Barrington returns in this novel, he’s in tough straits. His assistant Joan points out that he’s overextended and needs a plum case.

Then Herbie Fisher, a loser Stone mistakenly had employed on a previous case, re-enters his life, much to Stone’s regret.

Herbie is in over his head with a bookie, and two mob enforcers have roughed him up. So Herbie, himself a newly minted lawyer, decides to sue the ruthless mob boss, and Woodman and Weld, Stone’s putative employer, assigns the case to Stone, which creates great guffaws in the legal and law enforcement communities.

Stone has to keep Herbie alive, a task about which he’s indifferent. He is injured serving papers on the mob boss, and soon finds himself in the grip of a statuesque masseuse, who herself has a stalker from whom Stone attempts to protect her. He’s also representing a woman who is suing the mob boss’s philandering lawyer for divorce. So he’s juggling a lot of different headaches, none too successfully.

“Fresh Disasters” is aptly named, as Stone steps into one mess after another. Still, when the novel finishes, he ends up better off than he was, none the worse for wear. And it’s a helluva lot of fun getting there for the reader.

TREASURES OF THE KNIGHT, by Gaylen Greer, 2007, Xlibris, paperback, 225 pages, $21.99.

In her debut novel, Bangor resident Greer has crafted a

crackling spy thriller against a colorful historical tapestry.

At the center of “Treasures of the Knight” is Ken Walker, a former intelligence officer turned college marine archaeology professor. He leaves the quiet life of academe behind when a student, the son of his longtime mentor, is murdered by parties unknown, largely for the artifacts he had discovered.

Walker soon crosses paths with the Knights Templar, the supersecret organization behind the murder that is seeking to overthrow the government of France. As the title suggests, the knights also are seeking a treasure buried by their predecessors around the time of the French Revolution.

Greer keeps the action fast-paced and does a skillful job of weaving in the historical back story. Walker is a redoubtable protagonist, and the other characters are also well-drawn.

The novel could have used tighter editing, as typos and grammatical errors disrupt Greer’s narrative flow.

But “Treasures of the Knight” is an admirable first effort, and Greer has left enough unresolved to set up the sequel.