Customer Reviews

Cold Case

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Stephen White, where have you been all my life? I don't know how I've missed him, since I'm a more than avid reader, but I was very pleased with "Cold Case." I read it in record time because I just couldn't stop turning the pages. I really like Alan Gregory's character. He reminds me a bit of Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware, and I liked Lauren Crowder much better than Delaware's live-in, Robin. Even the dog, Emily, was a good character. The book certainly captured my interest and the ending lived up to the rest. I'll be looking for all the other Alan Gregory books.

Over ten years have passed since two Steamboat Springs High School juniors, Tami Franklin and Mariko Hamamoto, vanished just before Thanksgiving in Colorado. Their corpses were found a year later. The case was never solved.

Now, the Locard network of criminologists wants to re-look at the COLD CASE. They ask psychological profiler Dr. Alan Gregory and his spouse Assistant District Attorney Lauren Crowder to help them. The Locard group knows they need local talent to counterbalance the impact of a popular, high visibility celebrity, Congressman Dr. Raymond Welle, who is directly involved in the case. He provided psychological services to Mariko. Additionally, the sister of Lauren's first husband was once married to Raymond before she was brutally murdered by one of his patients. Alan begins to develop a profile on the two victims, their family members, and anyone else tied to the original case. The mounting evidence points towards Raymond as the prime suspect in three murders, but doesn't prove it beyond a shadow of doubt.

Alan and Lauren are entertaining lead protagonists because they are atypical of the perfect hunk/hunkette who solve crimes. Instead, Alan seems more like a college professor and the pregnant Lauren suffers from multiple sclerosis. Though the descriptions of the Rockies are breathtaking, it actually slows down a brilliant murder mystery. The Locard connection is especially enticing and hopefully, Stephen White will provide tales from their files in future novels. In his eighth appearance, Alan Gregory retains his freshness in a wonderful novel that will elate series and sub-genre fans.

Harriet Klausner

Stephen White is another novelist in the Jonathan Kellerman vein, and while he lacks a colorful sidekick like Milo of the Alex Delaware series, his psychological background comes to the fore throughout this novel. Alan Gregory is a bit of a cipher since you never really can figure him out. His first person viewpoint reaches out and fleshes out the various people running through the story, but he's rarely introspective enough to get a real good fix on him. That, and the bad guys are as obvious as the nose on your face. Still, this was a good read with a quick moving plot that never bored me. His knowledge of the terrain in Colorado was also an advantage. I never had any problem envisioning any of the beautiful scenery and the description of the ranch house made me want to see it for myself.

Will I read more in this series? Probably. And I will definitely recommend it to anyone needing a good beach book.

Having read all of Stephen White's novels in chronological order (which you also should do if you feel like exploring his complete work), I was highly impressed with this eighth instalment of the loose series.

Even though some of the plot is at times... well, quite predictable (anybody here who did not have an idea what would happen to the sympathetic Dorothy pretty quickly?), "Cold Case" nevertheless offers another exciting read from this gifted author. There are of course a lot of similarities to Jonathan Kellerman's L.A.-based Alex Delaware series, but Stephen White's very credible Colorado characters lend all of his thrillers deeper roots somehow.

Like I said in an earlier review, opening up a new Stephen White novel is like visiting good friends. It's great to see the main characters being carefully developed with each new novel - and with Stephen White you can bet that the story is always interesting, profoundly researched and well written.

This is a book that I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys mysteries. It is packed full of thrills, twists, and regular human life, in that the heroes and felons are portrayed as to how real live people lives, how they feel mentally and physically,no one is perfect. It is action packed and enthralling.

As a new resident of Boulder County, I have enjoyed Stephen White's thrillers, even though I usually steer clear of the genre. His stories entertain me, which is about all I ask of a mass-market paperback. Here as in his other books, the bad guys (and gals) get theirs in definitive and rather original fashion -- and, alas, usually an innocent victim gets it, too, rather like life.

It's true that my steam for this particular story ran out in the last hundred pages or so; I had to fight impulses to sneak peek at the last few pages. But it was rewarding enough to power on through to the end. Readers who complain that this book didn't give them the "why" of characters' actions were not paying attention.

I hope Stephen White will bring back A.J. Simes and her sidekick in future stories. I wouldn't mind seeing more of some the the Locard group characters, as well.

This book does not pretend to be more than it is: a fairly engaging read with some corpses thrown in for prurient interest. Take it for what it is and it is hard to think you'll be disappointed.

Although this novel held me in suspense a great deal of the time, I found sections of it quite boring, and I was less than satisfied with the ending.

Dr. Alan Gregory, and his wife Lauren (the Boulder County assistant district attorney), are invited to help in solving a 10 year old, unsolved case involving the murders of two teenage girls. An organization by the name of Locard, which is an elite group of prosecutors, forensic specialits, etc., have decided to reopen the case at the request of one of the victims parents. As Dr. Gregory, Lauren, and the members of Locard pursue their investigation, they begin to find a questionable relationship that had evolved between a former psychologist turned U.S. Congressman, and one of the murdered girls, as well as a crime perpatrated against one of the victims sisters, by none other than a famous sports celebrity who also happens to be a relative of the other murdered girl. The plot holds many twists, turns, and surprises, and can be quite intriguing at times.
I found the Locard members to be very interesting characters, as well as Dr. Gregory's new-found friend, Dorothy, who is a reporter for the Washington Post. However, this is not one of my favorite Stephen White novels. It's worth reading, yet I doubt that I would pick it up for a second round.

I've never read one of Steven White's mystery novels before. I wasn't aware he had a series going (which is one thing that I enjoy a great deal) and frankly hadn't heard of him. This book, for all it's flaws, has awakened me to him, and I'll be looking for others in the series.

Alan Gregory is a psychologist who's married to an Assistant District Attorney, Lauren Gregory. Lauren is pregnant and fighting MS. The two of them are summoned by a friend from Colorado to the east coast, where they meet a sort of club that specializes in solving mysteries that are old, and therefore "cold." They are asked to assist in the club's latest project, which is solving the murder, a dozen years before, of two girls (one of them Japanese) in Colorado near where Gregory and his wife live. The girls disappeared one winter, and weren't discovered till the snow melted. They'd been mutilated, and their snowmobile had crashed. Gregory and his wife agree, and from there on they investigate the crime, and another that occurred at about the same time, for about 400 pages.

The mystery itself isn't that entertaining. Procedural stuff these days is rather mundane; everyone knows how a crime scene is worked, who takes charge of what, and all of that. The crime itself is easily solved: I won't tell you who dunnit, but if you're anything like me, the first time you meet the character, you guess he has to be the killer, or at least a bad guy. This is kind of annoying, especially since it's so based on stereotypes (read the book and you'll see what I mean) and predictable. I was hoping for a twist or something more innovative (and frankly he did surprise me a bit at the end) but I think I was mostly disappointed.

Why then would I recommend the book? The characters, especially the secondary ones, are outstanding. Gregory himself is somewhat of an enigma, and his wife is little better. But the supporting characters, the crimefighters of Locard (the club) and a reporter from the Washington Post, are wonderful. We meet a woman with a marvelous selection of designer eye patches for her bad eye, an immature rock-climber who's also a pathologist, a reclusive computer expert, a prosecutor who knits in her spare time...It's all wonderful, and very much better than the plot. I'll be checking out Mr. White, to see what else he's written.

Cold Case is the story of a bunch of criminal specialists who take on the challenge of trying to solve old unsolved cases. The case was the murder of two teenage girls, who disappeared one winter night in Colorado and whose mutilated bodies were not found until springtime when the snow melted. The story is told through the eyes of Alan Gregory, a psychologist whose job was to learn as much as possible about the girls in an effort to help identify their killer. Gregory delved into their history stirring up a pot of intrigue involving Senator Welles and one of the victim's brother, a highly popular golfing pro. Gregory tries to untangle the conflicting impressions about each girl, an assasination attempt, investigations regarding Senator Welle's campaign finances, and the possibility of Welle's unprofessional arrangment with several patients. The pace is somewhat slow in the beginning but steadily builds to a whirlwind finish of suspense. It was a fun fast read and a great book to enjoy on the beach or vacation.

I really don't know why I keep reading Stephen White. He can write a readable novel for the most part but then at the end he just keeps throwing one implausible thing after another at us until our intelligence is insulted. How many times can a person be held at gunpoint but manage to get away? And after Alan whined so pitifully about getting the bad guys some medical help IMMEDIATELY even if it meant all his friends could rot I found myself hoping someone WOULD shoot him! I know he's a big humanitarian and all but he was just ridiculous during those parts. That he would display so much compassion and concern for people who had just done their best to mercilessly end his life stretched my suspended disbelief just too far. Shoot him already.

I liked all the members in Locard so much more than Alan. I read White's books for his secondary characters like Sam Purdy, I can barely tolerate whine-boy, and in this novel he is at his all time worst for stupidity and cluelessness. I can believe that Alan would follow the bad guy right into the big woods like an idiot, but Kimber? No way. How stupid do you think we are Mr. White?

SPOILER: But the real insult came with the resolution. Like another reviewer said: why in the world would the Franklin family pay to open that can of worms after so long? White insulted us with that bit. No way they would have done such a thing. I guess all the fireworks at the end were supposed to make us forget that little detail. This isn't the first time he has chosen an ending or a killer that doesn't fit the facts. The real mystery here is why I keep reading these silly books.