Product Description

They promised you’d be safe.

They were wrong.

It started with a convicted killer’s first threat of revenge...

“For every precious thing I lose, you lose two.”

DA Kirsten Lord saw her husband gunned down before her eyes. Now Kirsten is living in fear, telling her secrets to psychologist Alan Gregory ... and hiding deep in the Witness Protection Program,where every stranger is a threat, every phone call is a menace.

Until she realizes ... The Program is the deadliest place of all.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #372682 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01-02
• Released on: 2002-01-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 480 pages

From Amazon.com
Alan Gregory, the Boulder psychologist who's starred in Stephen White's long-running series of suspense novels, takes second billing in The Program. The star is Kirsten Lord, a New Orleans prosecutor who lands in Gregory's office after her husband is killed and her daughter's life threatened by a criminal she sent to prison. "Every precious thing I lose, you will lose two" is the warning that sends her on the run until she finally lands in the Witness Protection Program. But the danger's a long way from over. As a prosecutor, she was a loud and public critic of "the program," and as events unfold, it appears that her deadliest enemies may not be safely behind bars.

Some of the most interesting passages put Kirsten and Gregory together in scenes that underscore White's professional expertise. A clinical psychologist in private practice in Boulder, he brings his understanding of human nature out of the consulting room and onto the page. Fans of Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware will love Alan Gregory, whose relatively minor role at the start grows as the plot deepens and turns a hunt-and-chase thriller into a multidimensional, complex, and vividly realized novel. Long overdue for a place high on the bestseller list, White may well break out with this one. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly
Once it recovers from a wobbly beginning, this ninth thriller in the bestselling series featuring Boulder, Colo., clinical psychologist Alan Gregory sprints competently along. Peyton Francis, aka Kirsten Lord, was once a New Orleans district attorney. Now she and her nine-year-old daughter are enrolled in the witness protection program, in hiding from Peyton's husband's assassin, who was most likely hired by a Colombian drug lord Peyton put away for life. Given a new ID and moved to Boulder, Peyton is befriended by another witness protection participant, a former mob hitman who, like herself, is referred by the Feds to Dr. Gregory for counseling. Plagued by doubts about the federal marshal entrusted with her safety and tortured by second thoughts about the impending execution of a black man she may have mistakenly sent to death row in Florida, Peyton races against time to stay the Florida execution, and is forced to go into hiding from the very witness protection forces assigned to protect her. The usually sure-handed White is guilty of some artless writing at the novel's start, creating a veritable obstacle course of meandering points of view, including an obscure long-running metaphoric thread linking repressed memories to images of a pod of whales. However, once the narrative drive settles mainly into Peyton's first-person voice, the story comes handily together. Featuring an interesting cast, including a young Texas schoolmarm turned professional hit person, a sinister cabal of federal marshals with hidden agendas and an entrepreneurial assassination broker in Atlanta, the narrative drives to an edge-of-your-seat denouement. Author tour. (Apr.)Forecast: This is not White's best effort, but fans of the series will check in to catch up on Alan Gregory's adventures his wife is pregnant with their first child in this installment.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
After the murder of her husband, Kirsten Lord, a New Orleans district attorney and her nine-year-old daughter are sent into the U.S. Marshal's Witness Security Program (WITSEC) when a local drug dealer and rapist she prosecuted threatens them. She is relocated to Colorado, where she meets with Alex Gregory (White's psychologist hero) because he has been contracted by WITSEC to interview and monitor those in the group. Kirsten's position is tenuous: prior to the events that drove her into the program she was a critic of it, so she receives threats as a result. Another concern involves her best friend, a prosecutor she worked with to convict a man years before who is now scheduled to be executed, but because of new information, they are no longer certain he committed the crime. White's ability to create drama, suspense, and weave plots together in a thrilling d?nouement, as well as develop a fine cast, makes this a real treat. Sandra Burr's voice inflections for the various characters add to the entertainment. A good choice for audio collections. Steven J. Mayover, formerly with Free Lib. of Philadelphia
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

This has got to be Alan at his all time DUMBEST!
In The Program, Alan Gregory has only a bit part this time but never has he been more lame. The main character, Peyton, is in the Witness Protection program because she has people wanting her and her daughter dead. Now they're missing, her house is in shambles, blood is present on the scene and Alan is once again whining about how he can't breech confidence unless he knows she's in imminent danger. Duh, Alan, what did the nice marshall just tell you about her house? He says that the front window is busted out, her bedroom furniture is all over the place and there is blood. Too bad, Alan the Righteous is still not talking! And I kid you not this is what Alan says:

"Let's both of us pray that she met a guy and that her daugher's at a friend's house at a sleepover.

I kid you not. Would someone please shoot Alan and put him out of his misery? Actually about the only character in this book that has enough sense to come in out of a hard pouring rain is the hit man, Carl. What a preposterous story.

Weird too, the birth of their long awaited baby is barely a footnote. I would have thought it would be given more space than a bare mention. Definitely not Mr. White's best.

Good read but choppy plot
Characters in this book were interesting. Especially Carl!
The whole whale thread was very annoying and didn't mesh throughout the book. The best thing about S. White's books is he always has a fresh plotline and his writing is sharply drawn. He gives the characters humanity and humor and makes them leap off the pages. A good read but not his best.

A CAN'T PUT DOWN MULTI-LAYERED STORY
A frightening multi-layered story, The Program introduces a new protagonist for Stephen White - New Orleans District Attorney Kirsten Lord.

After Kirsten's husband is murdered by a hired gun, she soon discovers that her own life and that of her nine-year-old daughter's is threatened. Feeling she has no other valid choice she seeks safety in Boulder, Colorado under the Witness Protection Program.

However, once in the program she meets another who is being protected, Carl Luppo. He is a lone mob hit man very much, she suspects, like the man who killed her husband. Sensing her danger, Luppo befriends Kirsten; he appoints himself her guardian. But, he is he truly knight errant or persecutor?

Kirsten's chaotic life is in stark contrast to the relative tranquility enjoyed by Alan Gregory, a psychological consultant to the Protection Program and his wife who are preparing for the birth of their first child.

There's both darkness and light in this suspenseful tale as it reveals the internal workings of the Witness Protection Program and the emotional toll it takes on those who have sought safety. It's a taut, finely paced drama for thriller afficionados.

- Gail Cooke