Dead Time (Dr. Alan Gregory) by Stephen White Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Dead Time (Dr. Alan Gregory)
Book Review: New Alan Gregory thriller refreshes the series
Summary: 5 Stars
Dead Time by Stephen White is the most recent entry in the Dr. Alan Gregory series, and let me be the first to tell you that White is back on his game. Alan and his wife Lauren are struggling to cope with all of the revelations from the previous book, Dry Ice, as well as their new adopted son. Lauren and Grace, their daughter, go to the Netherlands to find the daughter Lauren put up for adoption years before. Jonas, the new son, is going to spend a few weeks with his mother's relatives in New York, so Alan takes an apartment in NYC to be near him. Merideth, Alan's ex, calls Alan and asks him to investigate the disappearance of the surrogate she's hired to carry her baby. There are multiple storylines that weave in and out of each other, but White handles them all with style. Sam and Alan's relationship is unsteady after the events of the previous book, and through their detective work, they come to a new and deeper friendship. White's books about Alan were starting to get a little stale. He and Lauren were a little too happy, and nearly every book involved some kind of danger for Lauren and Grace. While I wasn't thrilled with Dry Ice, it should be seen as a pivotal book in this series, because it's turned everything around. Alan is no longer predictable, flirting with alcoholism and infidelity, and even Lauren is hiding some secrets. The series suddenly seems fresh and full of possibility.Book Review: Not his best, but not his worst, either!
Summary: 3 Stars
If you're in the mood to read something that will really seize you and transport you - move on to something else. Dead Time is good, but not great.
It's a bit difficult at first to sort out what is going on in italics and then bouncing back to real time - and, on top of that, we start another bounce back and forth between "His Ex" and "Her Ex" - his is Merideth and hers is Alan. So, gimmicks aside, there is a good story here - perhaps drawn out and convoluted at times. Those of us who have spent time with Alan Gregory understand his thoughts, fears, temptations, etc. - so we're okay to hang around while he gets everything into perspective.
Dead Time is not a relaxing read. I found myself always having to go through a mental checklist of "okay, she's the one that..." - and "Oh, she was the friend of.." before I could let the action and circumstances flow. There were several times that Alan had to remind himself who some of these characters were, so, thankfully, I was not the only one confused!
The story has a quick wrap-up - everything falls into place and the mystery is explained. But, in most mysteries, the author plants clues all along the way so that we can start to put two and two together. Then, when the "aha" happens, we can reflect and say, "Yup, that's the way it happened." Not the case here, so I felt I was being handed the answers whether I was ready for them or not. This was not the usual tying up of loose ends. This was handing me the rope with the knot in it. I wish I could explain how disappointing the feeling is.
Of course, Alan and Lauren are left with almost everything unresolved, which means that we will be treated to a great coming together in the next book. I always look forward to White's next book - he's written some real dillies that live in my memory. Unfortunatly, this one will not!
Book Review: Psychologist, Heal Thyself!
Summary: 3 Stars
I have followed Stephen White's creation, Dr. Alan Gregory, through all 14 of his preceeding adventures (Kill Me was the lone foray off the bike path with Gregory.) After all this time, I am well-acquainted with the frustration that Alan's wives (past and present) have experienced while trying to live in the same house with him--I almost feel as though I'm married to him myself. Alan can be endearing but equally infuriating with his analytical, Sensitive Man INFP continual belly-button gazing. I recognize these traits in him, because he reads like a fictional, male version of myself, an INFP on the Myers-Briggs profile, too. I don't know when Alan's birthday is, but he's probably a Libra, as I am. We are both of us way too much in our heads and afraid of completely spontaneous emotion, and we hold people to stringent standards of accountibility for their behavior. These are stellar traits for a therapist; for a spouse, friend, lover? Maybe not so much. We can be hard to live with, and Alan on paper has brought that uncomfortably home to me in glorious black and white! As Adrienne would say, "Oy, bubbeleh--you've got problems." And how.
This latest installment once again finds our reluctant, increasingly morose protagonist inserting himself into matters and situations where he only marginally belongs, and obsessing over them in patented Gregory fashion. This book takes Alan out of his comfort zone of Boulder, CO as he crosses the country from New York City to L.A. and points in between, battling various personal demons from his past and his present. The book opens with a flashback: A group of students on a backpacking trip to the Grand Canyon witness or participate in Something Terrible, and have engineered a cover-up of those events. The shared dark secret continues to tear apart this once close-knit group and disrupt their collective present. This is an intriguing diversion, but just as we are wondering how our protagonist fits in, White drags us into Alan's more prosaic reality. We are reminded that Alan and Lauren are having marital difficulties (again) as a result of stuff that happened in the last book. They have been named guardians of Adrienne's son, Jonas, in his mother's will. Alan goes to New York to be close to his adopted son while Jonas visits relatives, and Lauren takes advantage of the temporary separation to pay a personal visit to Amsterdam. Alan's ex, Merideth appears out of the blue with a pressing problem she needs him to fix: turns out that one of the student backpackers is now in the surrogacy business, and she's carrying Merideth's baby. Lisa's gone missing and Merideth is frantic. The fact that Merideth's fiance and reproductive collaborator was also one of the student backpackers, and may have once had a romantic relationship with the surrogate complicates matters considerably. Complicated is just the way our hero likes it, and in short order, he's off to L.A. to track down the rest of the group on that ill-fated hiking trip at the behest of his ex, to see if he can find Lisa and Merideth's baby. Of course, Sam Purdy is also pressed into service on this mission, even though he's still on suspension from the police force.
While White managed to carry me along for this ride as he always does, untethering his hero from his natural environment didn't do him (or us) any favors. I found myself idly wondering, Does Alan in fact, practice psychotherapy anymore, if he can afford to be gone weeks and weeks at a time transecting the country? Is the aviation industry getting some kind of kickback from White? I lost track of just how many airports Alan was in and how many flights he was on in this installment. I don't recall him sleeping an entire night, either. If (as I suspect), Alan Gregory is a thinly-veiled alter ego for his creator, also a Colorado-based pyschologist firmly in middle age, isn't it more than a little ridiculous (and transparent) for nubile L.A. twenty-something girls he's just met to be trying so strenuously to seduce Alan? Alan has many fine qualities, but an irresistibility as a sex god to California girls less than half his age surely isn't one of them. I think White may be projecting his own midlife crises onto his character. Part of his midlife crises may be fantasizing that he, and therefore his character, is Jack Bauer--at least if this outing is any indication. A thin plot gets stretched past its breaking point here, and at the end we feel nearly as drained by all the frenetic running-around as Alan does. He lives to fight another day, but let's hope that the next installment finds him fighting in Boulder, where he belongs.
Book Review: Satisfying read, but ...
Summary: 4 Stars
I am a Stephen White fan and have read all of his Alan Gregory books. Love Alan, love Sam, love the Colorado setting.
This isn't my favorite of his books, but it is good. The story revolves around the disappearance of a woman on a Grand Canyon camping trip several years ago. That incident involved a group of young adults, including Eric (who is engaged to Alan's first wife, Merideth) and Lisa (who Eric and Merideth have sought as a surrogate for their own baby).
The story is good, but it does rely on a lot of coincidences: Alan and Merideth reconnect at a funeral (just in time so that she can call on him to help her when the surrogate disappears!); Alan is in NYC to be near his new stepson (just so convenient for Merideth's plea for help!); stuff like that. Not earth-shattering, just not White's best. We haven't jumped the shark yet, but there is definitely a fin in the water.
Book Review: So Disappointing!
Summary: 1 Stars
I was so disappointed with this newest Stephen White book, "Dead Time". I was looking forward to it after reading so many of his other books. I really think someone else wrote this and put his name on it! If you are looking for a good Stephen White novel, try "The Program" or "Warning Signs".