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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780440237266
ISBN number: 0440237262
Label: Dell
Manufacturer: Dell
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 480
Printing Date: January 02, 2002
Publishing house: Dell
Release Date: January 02, 2002
Sale Popularity Level: 426452
Studio: Dell
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Product Description:
They promised you’d be safe.
They were wrong.
It started with a convicted killer’s very first threat of revenge...
“For every precious thing I lose, you lose two.”
DA Kirsten Lord saw her husband gunned down before her eyes. Now Kirsten is living in fear, telling her secrets to psychologist Alan Gregory ... and hiding deep in the Witness Protection Program,where every stranger is a threat, every phone call is a menace.
Until she realizes ... The Program is the deadliest place of all.
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
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Rated by buyers 
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This is a disappointing effort from Stephen White. The plot is totally unbelievable, and the characters are one-dimensional. I especially found the daughter to be beyond irritating. Please--no more kids in these books!
Rated by buyers 
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Good. Doesn't grab the reader as much as some of the other Stephen White books I've read
Rated by buyers 
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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 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.
The Program gives us a new main character, Kristen Lord, who comes to Boulder and Alan Gregory's practice as a protected witness. Kristen is a interesting character, brave and cautious at the same time; worried about her daughter and her own life, her fear/panic is palpable, but we never see her as a victim - quite an accomplishment for White. There are some nifty minor characters and a great new dog in the mix, as well as a chance for Lauren and Alan to work together.
Rated by buyers -
Kirsten Lord is a district attorney who became accustom to threats directed at her from criminals she helped convict. All meaningless threats until, Ernesto Castro, a big shot in the drug trade, didn't threaten, but promised this: "Every precious thing I lose, you will lose, two." Soon after that promise, Kirsten Lord was burying her murdered husband. Soon after that, the Witness Protection Program gave Kirsten and her daughter new identities, a new life, and the promise of safety.
Typically, Kirsten was smart, at least she had enough smarts to know she couldn't hide forever, and had the intuition to know who to befriend and who not to trust. However, when at least one legitimate source and a few questionable ones threaten your life, and when you feel totally out-of-control, can you really trust your own intelligence and intuition?
Kirsten needs a place to voice the terror she feels every minute of every day, she needs to spell out the guilt she feels for her part in her husband's death and the dangerous situation she has now caused for her own daughter, and she needs to deal with her obvious issues of trust. The U.S. Marshal assigned to her case, refers her to psychologist, Dr. Alan Gregory. Dr. Gregory takes on this new and interesting patient without a clue as to what is in store for him and his wife, Lauren.
This was a great addition to Stephen White's thrillers about Dr. Alan Gregory, maybe a little bit longer than it had to be, but I would still recommend it as possibly the best the series has to offer thus far. For me, it was one of those books where you get to the end and not realizing it's the end you turn the page only to be disappointed that what you see is not more storyline, but the acknowledgments. I wanted more story!
4 ½ stars
Rated by buyers -
This is the 9th book in Stephen White's series with psychologist Alan Gregory and a cast of characters that we have come to know over the previous eight books. The difference with this book is that it has little to do with Alan Gregory or any of the other characters. It was a risk in my opinion for the author to make his main star a minor character in someone else's story. And, the risk paid off.
I'll admit, I started reading this book because I was reading the series and thought it would be a good read since I already knew the characters. When I realized that the book was totally about someone else and their entrance into the Witness Protection Program and eventually their run from it, I decided I would not like the book. I kept reading anyway and soon I was caught up in the story just like all Stephen White's other books.
A different read, but a surprisingly good one.
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