STUART WOODS: R.I.P.

Mystery Author Stuart Woods: R.I.P.

From the Washington Post:

Stuart Woods, an author of more than 90 novels, many featuring the character of lawyer-investigator Stone Barrington, has died. He was 84.

Woods passed away in his sleep on Friday, July 22, at his home in Litchfield County, Connecticut, his publicist, Katie Grinch, said Wednesday.

Woods, a graduate of the University of Georgia in his home state, moved to New York in 1960 to pursue a career in journalism. He ended up instead with a career in advertising and eventually moved to London and then to Galway, Ireland, where he discovered sailing.

His first book, Blue Water, Green Skipper, was a non-fiction account of his 1976 adventure competing in the the Observer Single-handed Trans-Atlantic Race, which began in Plymouth, England, and ended in Newport, Rhode Island.

After W.W. Norton & Company acquired the American rights to the book, it also agreed to publish Woods’ first novel.

That book, 1981’s Chiefs, about three generations of lawmen and the murder of a teenager in a small southern town, won literary awards and was made into a CBS miniseries starring Charlton Heston, Danny Glover, Billy Dee Williams and John Goodman.

The book’s success launched Woods’ prolific career as a novelist that saw him write five books a year for G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

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