Product Description

Dr. Alan Gregory has discovered the terrifying link between the bizarre murders of six old friends and colleagues--and it's buried in his own hidden past. It is a secret that marks him as the next victim....

"Pulls readers along like a steam train....Don't crack this thing unless there's nothing else to do, because once you get started nothing else is going to get done."-- Denver Post

"The invigorating twists and turns...[will leave readers] gasping."-- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Heart-stopping suspense."-- Cleveland Plain Dealer

"White is so good at pumping up menace."-- Kirkus Review

"Top-notch."-- Chicago Tribune

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #388843 in Books
• Published on: 2000-01-13
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.11" h x 4.14" w x 6.74" l, .44 pounds
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 416 pages

From Amazon.com
The spirit of D.B. Cooper--the legendary hijacking parachutist--hovers over Stephen White's latest book about Colorado psychologist Alan Gregory, and this jaunty ghost gives the outing even more stylish substance than usual. By adding elements of Cooper's crime and disappearance (with a large amount of cash) to a story of medical malpractice and resulting revenge, White--a practicing Colorado psychologist himself--pushes the envelope of what's real and what's fictional to the advantage of both.

After attending the funeral of a former colleague from his days as an intern, Gregory is accosted (and has a tempting Mexican lunch spoiled) by a pair of edgy ex-FBI agents now working for a high-ticket private security firm. They believe that the colleague's "accidental" death on a hiking trip is really part of an attempt to wipe out everyone who was part of a particular team in a psychiatric unit at the University of Colorado's Health Services Center in Denver in 1982. As members of that team, Gregory--and his former lover, Sawyer Sackett--are among the few remaining survivors and the next likely targets. Overhearing this news causes a waitress to drop two platters of green chili burritos in a messy clatter.

D.B. Cooper becomes an important part of the story as Gregory, his prosecutor wife, Lauren (whose multiple sclerosis leads to some unusual and important observations), their cop friend Sam Purdy, and the two ex-FBI agents zero in on possible suspects--one of whom has an abnormal fascination with the hijacker's life. White spends a tad too much time on Alan's past history with the mysterious Sawyer, but in general his narrative engine runs smoothly and powerfully toward its satisfying and largely unexpected conclusion. Other Gregory books include Critical Conditions, Harm's Way, Higher Authority, Private Practices, and Remote Control. --Dick Adler

From Publishers Weekly
The invigorating twists and turns of practicing psychologist White's (Privileged Information) new Alan Gregory thriller drag readers over rugged Colorado terrain, past a gauntlet of eccentric characters spawned by the Rocky Mountain lifestyle, through the most intimate details of the protagonists' lives, leaving them gasping at the switchback ending of this chilling stalker novel. Attending the funeral of a former colleague, Boulder psychologist Alan learns from two quirky ex-FBI agents that this is the latest in a string of clueless murders targeting the entire group of students, supervisors and staff who shared Alan's clinical psychology residency some years earlier. Only Alan and his former lover, Dr. Sawyer Sackett, now survive, and they are undoubtedly next on the killer's hit list. Alan's wife, Lauren, a prosecuting attorney afflicted with multiple sclerosis, is threatened as well, but throws her considerable skills fully into the fray. Alan's friend on the Boulder police force, Detective Sam Purdy, provides police clout, FBI equalizing and protection for Lauren. The pros go after former patients, but Alan and Sawyer snoop best, tracing a lead involving legendary hijacker D.B. Cooper and some truly disturbed suspects. White conveys his love for Colorado and his profession while delivering an evaluation of the mental health industry. Martinet shrinks and caring analysts get equal billing, while both the promise and limitations of psychology are cleanly spelled out. A newly honed sense of humor adds zip to White's prose without detracting a mite from the menace and gore. Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club and Mystery Guild selections.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Dr. Alan Gregory, the Boulder psychologist whose previous six cases (Critical Conditions, p. 80, etc.) have all introduced him to murderers, becomes a killer's target himself. The news comes when Gregory travels to Denver for his old school acquaintance Dr. Arnold Dresser's funeral. A pair of retired FBI agents hired by Dresser's mother lay out an elaborate pattern of accidents stretching back ten years, all involving members of the 1982 Orange Unit on Eight East of the University of Colorado's Health Sciences Center. Long before Dresser froze to death after a mountain-climbing accident, Gregory's supervising psychiatrist died in a plane crash; his fellow residents have fallen victim to malfunctioning tanning beds, disappeared from cruise ships, and been slain in drive-by shootings. And now, the ex-Feebies tell him, it's his turn, since he and Dr. Sawyer Sackett Faire are the only surviving alumni of the 1982 Orange Unit. Gregory's terror is mixed with guilt and fascination, since he can't forget the torrid affair he and the beautiful, unapproachable Sawyer carried on during their residency. Now, when he does see her again, after replaying his memories of their earlier romance in unsparing detail, hell not only be able (under the direst possible circumstances) to get naked with her once more but will even find out secrets she was carrying around 17 years ago, though not before the killer booby-traps the renovation at Gregory's house, tampers with his furnace, and sends his wife, ADA Lauren Crowder, and their dog to the hospital. The murderer, Gregory feverishly realizes, could be anybody connected with Eight Eastthe ex-patient reborn as a CNN anchor, the chess-playing schizophrenic Gregory was forced to release, the man who offered to trade the identity of real-life airplane hijacker D.B. Cooper for his ticket off the floorand that wide set of choices is just the problem with this action-filled, unfocused suspenser. White is so good at pumping up menace that some readers will forgive the loose ends and high-energy, low-rationality windup. Not all of them, though. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.