Status
Series
Genres
Collection
Publication
Description
Alan Gregory is a clinical psychologist with a thriving practice in Boulder, Colorado. His life begins to unravel when one of his female patients is found in an apparent suicide and the local paper begins printing accusations from an unnamed source of sexual impropriety between the woman and Dr. Gregory. He launches a psychological and personal quest for the truth that rapidly intensifies when more of his patients die untimely deaths, and Gregory suspects not only that the deaths are related but that another one of his patients may be somehow involved. Lacking facts but roused by suspicion and troubled by seemingly random acts of terror around him, Gregory starts to fear for the safety of the people he loves. The question of the inviolability of confidential disclosures made to Gregory by his patients - privileged information - becomes crucial as the psychologist pursues an unsettling romance with Lauren Crowder, a lovely deputy district attorney investigating one of the deaths. Bound to silence, Gregory follows the psychological tracks of someone he fears may be a cunning and disturbed killer, while turning to his enigmatic but supportive partner, Diane Estevez, for counsel, and to his tart-tongued female urologist neighbor for support. The sinister, surprising drama unfolds against Boulder's Rocky Mountain backdrop, in the arresting natural beauty of Aspen, and in the midst of a baroque Halloween costume party in downtown Boulder. Finally, in a lonely mountain lodge enshrouded in menace, the story comes to its breathtaking climax.… (more)
User reviews
The setting is Boulder, Colorado, as it's fun to read books set in my neck of the woods. I fell in love with the Bouvier des Flandres, Cicero. The storyline is plausible and for a mystery, not gruesome. I did question Alan's initial failure to see an overly coincidental meeting with someone he knew as something other than coincidence. Some of my favorite quotes from early in the book are:
“I carried a bottle of red and a bottle of white, unsure which went better with brine.”
“In the tropics people are evacuated when the winds hit seventy miles an hour; in Boulder, when the Chinooks gust past ninety, people compensate by talking a wee bit louder, rescheduling tennis matches and bicycle rides, and leaning a little bit when they walk.”
“Her hair was the color of good topsoil....”
“Adolescence is a disease from which total recovery is rare.”
I have had this book on my bookshelf for about three years and have only just sat down to read it. I'm so glad that I did as it was truly an engrossing read that I almost didn't want to end. I give this book an A+! and look forward to tracking down more of Stephen White's books to read. There are now about nineteen or twenty books in the Alan Gregory Series, and I can't wait to read more from Stephen White.