by Stuart Woods
After Special Agent Holly Barker lets international terrorist Teddy Fay slip through her fingers for a second time, the CIA thinks she might want a long vacation, at least until Teddy is captured and the bad publicity has blown over. So Holly returns to her hometown of Orchid Beach, Florida, where she had been police chief for many years. But a very unpleasant surprise awaits her. Many years earlier, Holly and another female army officer had brought charges against their commanding officer for sexual harassment, attempted rape, and rape. Holly had managed to fight him off, but the other woman, a young lieutenant, had not. The officer in question was acquitted of all charges, and has also left the armyfor a job as Orchid Beach's new police chief.
Will Holly return to the CIA? Or will she challenge her old nemesis for control of the Orchid Beach Police Department?
"Woods piles on the coincidences in his modestly entertaining fifth thriller to feature CIA agent Holly Barker." - Publishers Weekly
"The familiar characters' familiar moves are as stylized as Kabuki in this pedestrian procedural." - Kirkus Reviews
This information about Hothouse Orchid was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Stuart Woods is the author of more than ninety novels, including the New York Timesbestselling Stone Barrington series. He was a native of Georgia and began his writing career in the advertising industry. Chiefs, his debut in 1981, won the Edgar Award. An avid sailor and pilot, Woods lived in New Mexico, Florida, and Maine. He died in July 2022 aged 84.

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