Customer Reviews

Dead Time (Alan Gregory Series)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

He's back at the microphone again - the ever amazing voice performer Dick Hill. Named a Golden Voice and a Voice of the Century by AudioFile, he is one of the busiest narrators to be found yet the quality of his performances never flags. He has the unique ability to inhabit a character, seeming to reflect the individual qualities the author intended.

Listeners will remember with pleasure Hill's readings of recent Alan Gregory adventures - Kill Me and Dry Ice, and be delighted with his latest.

Colorado psychologist Alan Gregory is one of the more popular fictional heroes - he's very human, flaws and all. As this story opens he has some free time to ponder where life has taken him. His wife, Lauren, is on a trip with daughter Grace and his adopted son, Jonas, is away. But Gregory doesn't have long to adjust to the unaccustomed peace and quiet as he receives and SOS call from his former wife, Meredith.

Lisa, the surrogate mother for the child of Meredith and her fiancé, Eric, has vanished. Her disappearance is somehow tied to an earlier incident - the years ago disappearance of a woman from the Grand Canyon floor when Eric and friends were at the Canyon on a camping trip. Eric will not discuss this, and Meredith feels she must turn to Gregory who calls on his good friend, detective Sam Purdy, to help.

As Gregory tries to interview the six people who were on that camping trip he finds that none of them wants to talk about the woman's disappearance or the trip.

Listeners and readers know that nothing is easy for Alan Gregory, which makes a mighty fine yarn. Especially when read by Dick Hill.

Enjoy!

- Gail Cooke

I've enjoyed White's Alan Gregory novels over the years, though the quality has varied; he has some habits that are sometimes annoying.

In this book, the disappearance of a female hiker years ago in the Grand Canyon is the spine that drives this story, as that foundation leads Gregory into a search for the surrogate mother of his ex-wife's baby, one she's having with her fiance, who was ALSO in the Grand Canyon on that fateful day.

In many ways this is an attempt at modern noir, along the lines of "Out of the Past", but that's also one of its failings. In the noir genre, the central character is involved because of decisions he's made or actions he's taken in the past that are now catching up to him. But that's one of the failings of the book: Gregory is virtually a mere bystander or observer as the actions unfold. A character will tell him something, which he passes on to a different character; that character will act on the information, and in turn pass that on to Gregory, who then gets his buddy Sam to take some action; Sam then reports back to Gregory, who then tells another character..... well, you get the picture. Gregory is basically a traffic cop directing the flow of information and actions of OTHER characters as the story unfolds; he doesn't do much of anything himself. Further, there were so many characters being juggled around third-hand, that it was hard to keep them straight. You need a scorecard. There's one major character from the Grand Canyon segment who doesn't even ever really appear in the story except as a dead body -- which we never even "see"!

To be quite honest, the soap-opera timbre of Gregory's marriage and his relationship issues with his wife are also becoming very tedious, and yet again nothing is resolved in this book. How long is White going to drag this out? Gregory is, frankly, a wuss in addressing issues with his wife, very annoyingly passive-aggressive. As a shrink himself, I wonder if White is even aware of this unattractive aspect of Gregory's character? Is Gregory an alter-ego reflecting White's OWN passive-aggressive nature? Interesting to ponder, but the bottom line is it's very monotonous and irritating.

I also have to say that for a major house like Dutton, in publishing one of their upper-tier authors, this book sure had a lot of typographical and grammatical errors: misspelled or entirely missing words, missing or incorrect puntuation, and others. Surprising and distracting.

It did hold some interest, and the flashback scenes to the Grand Canyon were interesting and well done. The solution to the mystery was certainly surprising in that again, there was no real foundation laid for the denouement. That enhanced the surprise, at the expense of believability and the satisfaction quotient.

Like I said; a mixed bag. Three stars.

I am a big Stephen White fan - Dry Ice certainly ran the gamut of emotions with White's characters, and with his readers.

Dead Time starts with a catch line that gets your attention.

Then proceeds to explain that event.

It all starts at neighbor and friend Adrienne's memorial service reception - Alan's ex-wife Meredith appears. She was a dear friend of Adrienne's but she has an agenda - the surrogate for her child is missing - and she needs Alan's help to find her.

Alan's new 'son', Jonas, Adrienne's son, goes to New York for a visit with his uncle and family. Alan comes along for support and stays back in NYC. Meredith wants Alan to involve Alan's best bud, Sam Purdy, who has always had Alan's back - through thick and thin - to help investigate a decades old mystery that ties her fiance and baby's daddy with the surrogate (missing).

Lauren and Alan's marriage isn't on the most solid ground at this point, and Lauren and daughter go to find Lauren's daughter she gave up for adoption, leaving Alan 'single' and prey to ladies' attentions...

Well, if it seems a little soap-opera-y - it kind of is.

Circumstances and events a little too much coincidental to make all the places fit the puzzle.

Sam and Alan are still on solid ground - what will happen to Alan's marriage, we'll have to wait for other books.

A Stephen White book, however not his best, is better than most authors' works, and his readers will not be disappointed with this effort. If they understand that sometimes the actions are a stretch.

I am very disappointed in this novel of Mr. White's. I loved his last two books but this one was honestly boring. The beginning caught my attention and I was ready to enjoy a good mystery. There was such a lull in the book where most of the story was Alan trying to decide if he was going to sleep with different women while his wife was away. Then the same thing was there for Sam too. Was he or was he not going to sleep with this woman? The only real clue in the entire mystery in two thirds of the book was one lime green tennis shoe found. After reading three quarters of the book I gave up and tossed it. I hope his next novel proves to be more mystery and less sleeping around information. Being horney is no mystery.

This was a tough one to finish. Some other reviewers have mentioned that this book needs tighter editing; I agree. I skimmed so much, especially the conversations between Sam and Alan, which were tedious, boring, too long...you probably get my drift. Meredith's situation had nothing to do with the main plot line of the book and was unnecessary. Then there was the one character with three names, and a character with the last name "Poteet" and another with the last name of "Peet". And, also like other reviewers, I'm bored of the drama surrounding the Gregory's marriage. Please Mr. White-either have them be married or split them up. Please.

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.

I've read all of White's books and this one is the weakest of all. His novels tend to be hit or miss in quality but just plain poor writing sinks the minimal effort put forth by the author here. At the end, White thanks his editor. Perhaps he needs a stronger editor, one who will tell him when one of his novels needs a lot of work. The reader could skip this entry and not miss a thing except disappointment and frustration.

Before I began Dead Time, I couldn't help but see all this author's previous titles and thought, with awe, that I have been so very pleased with all SW's books and just how amazing that is for me...I guess I gave myself the kobosh---wow and what WAS he thinking is all I can say. Yes, this book is all over the place, and truthfully, I couldn't have cared less about the EX or her life when the book began, and by the end, I felt as tho AG needs lotsa help. And oddly enough I found I didn't care about the original crime or any of the people involved with it--so I was reading the entire book caring mainly about Jonas and feeling very sorry for poor Gracie, because her daddy has problems....I am laughing with great disappointment....the saving grace for me is that I took this out from the library so it didn't cost me a penny!!

I really enjoy the Alan Gregory series. This one is as good as any he's written.

Dr. Alan Gregory is a durable hero. He's been shot, stabbed, pushed off of cliffs, almost pushed off of cliffs, stalked, variously assaulted, and attacked by at least one wild animal. And yet he remains a mensch - tiresomely physically fit and over-addicted to healthy living, perhaps, but still a mensch. He admires his wife, cherishes his friends, and generally respects his patients. He loves his dogs, present and past. The supporting cast is equally attractive/compelling: Lauren Crowder's independent intelligence and relentless bravery, Sam Purdy's common sense and generosity, Adrienne Arvin's dementedly charming chutzpah, Diane and Raoul's wit and trendy whimsy, all serve to anchor the series. And the presence of Grace in the later novels promises to develop into a great child character, possibly rivaling Lucy Karp in the early Gruber-authored Tanenbaums. The incidental characters are vivid and generally believable, almost without exception. Some authors are better at male characters than female, or the reverse, but White is excellent at people, all people. Most of the books are first-person narration by Gregory, but White can shift to third-person with aplomb.

Aside from the great characters, the plots of this series are outstanding. We learn about a private end-of-life corporation, cold-case volunteer groups, the Mormons, DB Cooper, the cult of personality, Grand Canyon adventures, and the fallout from the JonBenet case, all without stretching the seams of the community based in Boulder, CO. When the plots call for suspense, the books are literally terrifying, real white-knuckle reads. White is witty and insightful and the very best craftsperson of the English language I've read in years. His casually correct use of the subjective fills me with delight, as do his always-agreeing pronouns, and his elegant but unpretentious syntax. His prose is a pleasure to read.

The settings are wondrously vivid - views, trees, coffee houses, the streets and walks of Boulder and environs. White brings food to the table and vistas to the eye. You can track his characters on GoogleEarth and see just what he describes. I fell into this series at a gruesome time for me, professionally, and reading them all in a period of a couple of weeks has been an exercise in staying sane. Some are, of course, better than others - Kill Me, The Program, Higher Authority, Manner of Death - and there are some weak links (Cold Case, Private Practices), but I can't imagine reading 15 books by any other contemporary author sans break and still wishing for more.

Dead Time makes use of the series' favorite mode: the flash-back. We re-meet Merideth, Alan's first wife who appeared briefly in the second novel. She's an unsympathetic character presented with skill sufficient to buffer her warts, and her ego-centered plot pulls Alan in. He's in his own Slough of Despond, and fairly unattractive with it. As a portrait of failed and floundering marriages, the book is keenly insightful. There are many, many characters, but each is drawn so clearly that the reader doesn't get confused. White nails the exquisitely self-involved, massively self-righteous world-view of recent undergrads, where no nuance is too small to agonize over, no desire too fleeting for collective scrutiny. The ending leaves us hoping for better days for the Gregory-Crowder clan.