Take a character as multi-dimensional as Tony Soprano. Pair him with a mother and daughter in peril and on the run. Add a clinical psychologist tasked with helping them negotiate their new lives - a program with an agenda all its own - and the result is a book that Stephen White's peers are already calling "one of the best thrillers you will ever read" (William Bernhardt) and "an exciting ride through a dark region of law enforcement." (Peter Abrahams). When New Orleans District Attorney Kirsten Lord and her nine-year-old daughter are imperiled by a chillingly believable death threat, Lord has no other choice but to accept the Witness Protection Program's offer to hide them in Boulder, Colorado. There, they meet program veteran Carl Luppo, a solitary mob hit man who is tormented by his former life and has nothing but time for regret. Sensing that Lord and her daughter's safety has been compromised, Luppo takes on the role of sentinel, fully realizing this might be his last shot at redemption. While Lord suspects that Luppo's warnings about the program's dark side are for her own protection and that she should believe the former assassin's instincts, the only person she can really trust is nine-years-old.
The Program
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Alan Gregory, the Boulder psychologist who's starred in Stephen White's long-running series of suspense novels, takes second billing in The Program. The star is Kirsten Lord, a New Orleans prosecutor who lands in Gregory's office after her husband is killed and her daughter's life threatened by a criminal she sent to prison. "Every precious thing I lose, you will lose two" is the warning that sends her on the run until she finally lands in the Witness Protection Program. But the danger's a long way from over. As a prosecutor, she was a loud and public critic of "the program," and as events unfold, it appears that her deadliest enemies may not be safely behind bars.
Some of the most interesting passages put Kirsten and Gregory together in scenes that underscore White's professional expertise. A clinical psychologist in private practice in Boulder, he brings his understanding of human nature out of the consulting room and onto the page. Fans of Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware will love Alan Gregory, whose relatively minor role at the start grows as the plot deepens and turns a hunt-and-chase thriller into a multidimensional, complex, and vividly realized novel. Long overdue for a place high on the bestseller list, White may well break out with this one. --Jane Adams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Once it recovers from a wobbly beginning, this ninth thriller in the bestselling series featuring Boulder, Colo., clinical psychologist Alan Gregory sprints competently along. Peyton Francis, aka Kirsten Lord, was once a New Orleans district attorney. Now she and her nine-year-old daughter are enrolled in the witness protection program, in hiding from Peyton's husband's assassin, who was most likely hired by a Colombian drug lord Peyton put away for life. Given a new ID and moved to Boulder, Peyton is befriended by another witness protection participant, a former mob hitman who, like herself, is referred by the Feds to Dr. Gregory for counseling. Plagued by doubts about the federal marshal entrusted with her safety and tortured by second thoughts about the impending execution of a black man she may have mistakenly sent to death row in Florida, Peyton races against time to stay the Florida execution, and is forced to go into hiding from the very witness protection forces assigned to protect her. The usually sure-handed White is guilty of some artless writing at the novel's start, creating a veritable obstacle course of meandering points of view, including an obscure long-running metaphoric thread linking repressed memories to images of a pod of whales. However, once the narrative drive settles mainly into Peyton's first-person voice, the story comes handily together. Featuring an interesting cast, including a young Texas schoolmarm turned professional hit person, a sinister cabal of federal marshals with hidden agendas and an entrepreneurial assassination broker in Atlanta, the narrative drives to an edge-of-your-seat denouement. Author tour. (Apr.)Forecast: This is not White's best effort, but fans of the series will check in to catch up on Alan Gregory's adventures his wife is pregnant with their first child in this installment.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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More About the Author
Stephen White is a clinical psychologist and New York Times bestselling author of suspense novels, including Dead Time and The Siege. He lives in Colorado.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great read though a small departure from his series,
This review is from: The Program (Hardcover)
Sentenced drug dealer Ernesto Castro warns New Orleans Assistant District Attorney Kirstin Lord that for every thing he loses, she will lose twice. A few weeks later, Kirstin goes to meet her spouse Robert at the Galatoire restaurant, but sees the hitman wearing the Saints cap assassinate her husband. Though grieving her loss, Kirstin realizes that Castro said "twice" and worries that her eight-year old daughter Amy will be next.Ironically, Kirstin, a vocal critic of the witness protection program hiding killers from justice, enters the Federal witness security program. She becomes Peyton Francis and Amy becomes Landon, and they relocate to Boulder. Needing psychological help to cope with the upheaval and tragedies of her life she begins to see Dr. Alan Gregory, whose other WITSEC patient is former hitman Carl Luppo, a killer of at least 15-20 people. Carl realizes that something is not right with Peyton's disguise and takes the two females under his personal protection whether it is from Castro or someone more sinister. THE PROGRAM is an exciting thriller that provides an insightful look into the pros and cons of the witness protection program. Kirstin and Carl are intriguing characters hiding for different reasons. The return of Dr. Gregory is always a reason to rejoice, but in all honesty his role is a secondary catalyst to the fast-paced main plot starring Kirstin. Still, he plays a pivotal role and his sessions with his two patients seem very real, making the story line feel genuine. Best-selling author Stephen White may have written his best novel to date with this tremendous taut tale. Harriet Klausner
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Better and better,
By
This review is from: The Program (Hardcover)
I like Stephen White's books (and have read them all) for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that he's not afraid to shift the focus away from psychologist Alan Gregory and his now-wife, prosecutor Lauren Crowder. To compare him to Jonathan Kellerman (as Doubleday does on the flap copy-something Doubleday just loves to do, as if comparison is a huge selling point rather than a risk of turning readers away) is to do White a great disservice. White never, as Kellerman always does, inflicts himself on the material. (One can almost hear Kellerman exclaiming from the pages, "Aren't I clever?" Well, no, actually.) Aside from brief mentions now and then of discredited syndromes (like repressed/recovered memories) he doesn't actually travel down the potentially hazardous road of bad therapy. Instead, he allows the characters to remain in character. And fine characters they are, too! In The Program, not only is the story original and clever, but also he's created in retired hitman, witness-protected, Carl Luppo, one of the most original and well-conceived people I've read about recently.What I also like about White is his plotting skill. Each book seems to get just that much tighter, that much leaner, that much more labyrinthine. And the different "voices" in this book have genuine authenticity, particularly the exchanges between what, for want of a better term might be called, the "contract arranger" and his sundry hitmen/women. No overly technical whiz-bang stuff, just meat-and-potatoes serious business. Kirsten Lord's (the prosecutor in witness protection) whale motif is a tad peculiar, but since the woman never for a moment goes out of character, who's to say it isn't valid? Certainly her concern for her daughter, and her grief over the murder of her husband, ring very true. Maybe people start thinking about whales when they're threatened with the loss of everything they value. Finally, any writer who can endow two dogs with such character that the readers can actually see them, is a writer to be reckoned with. I highly recommend all White's books. They're never less than very good. The man really does get better and better and, in large part, I think it's as a result of his willingness sometimes to let his two central characters play secondary roles.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another 5 * s for Stephen White,
By
This review is from: The Program (Hardcover)
Assistant DA Kirsten Lord is on the run along with her eight year old daughter. After Ernesto Castro,s drug dealing conviction, he threatens her saying, "For everything I lose, you will lose twice." When Kirsten's husband is shot down by a professional hit man in front of her, she and Amy change their names and leave town thinking they can relocate with the support of friends in her state but without any real protection. When Amy is nearly kidnapped, she asks for help from the Federal Witness Security Program (WITSEC) The story line continues to develop as the reader learns that Kirsten has been a vocal and successful critic of the program and there are many federal agents who do not think she deserves their protection whatever the danger to her and her child. As she joins the program and is relocated to Boulder, Colorado, she requests the help of a psychologist to help her deal with all the trauma that she is dealing with. The psychologist is Dr. Alan Gregory, and old friend from Stephen White's previous books. Dr. Gregory is also treating a second member of the WITSEC program...a mob hit man named Carl Luppo. Carl and Kirsten meet as the suspense grows and Kirsten realizes that she knows someone wants to kill her, but that she cannot determine by herself if it is Ernesto Castro, someone within the WITSEC program, or a third party from an old case that she had prosecuted. The book is worth reading to find out who all the characters are and whether or not they are the bad guys with the intent to kill. Incidentally Dr. Gregory's wife, Laura, an Assistant DA herself, gets involved with helping solve the mystery even though she is nearly ready to have the baby that she and Alan were waiting for in an earlier book. The old neighbor Adreinne is still next door as well even though she plays only a very minor role. The book is a page turner worth reading and Stephen White is an author I will look for again.
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