text: Save your time, money and patience.  This may be the worst book I have read since the equally monotonous, predictable Stone Barrington novel "The Short Forever".  Wow, this one stinks.  Like others, I put up with the shallow characters, ludicrous dialogue and endless parade of showers, boobs and guns to figure out whodunit.  Unfortunately, this book had an ambiguous ending that seeks to be clever but is instead is just stupid.  Who on earth did kill Vance?  And come to think of it, who gives a damn?  I don't what women did to Stuart Woods but he sure seems to hold them in complete contempt.  Every female character, save for Isabel the maid, felt compelled to practically rape our handsome hero.  Each is flawless and gorgeous but also all are dumb, vacuous, self-centered and thoroughly unlikeable - hey a couple are even truly psychotic!  The only normal female character who spared Stone, Mary Ann, unfortunately has a room temperature IQ.  I am hardly a prude, but I lost count of how many women either Vance or Stone made love to in the course of one short novel and felt the need to take a long hot shower to rid myself of the feelings of filth.  Mr. Woods either lives in a world of complete ignorance or the reading public is a lot less discriminating than I thought
  