Stephen White - The Program (2004)
"Remember this. Every precious thing I lose, you will lose two."This menacing threat, spoken in vehement anger by a man she sent to prison, becomes a tragic reality for Kirsten Lord when her husband is slain before her eyes. In this suspenseful, fast-paced book, Stephen White rises to a new level in psychological fiction.
District Attorney Kirsten Lord has been threatened before, but never by a man who has enough hate and power to follow through. Ernesto Castro's threat was no different from the others until her fateful anniversary date with her husband. Just days after learning that Castro's mother died in a car accident, Kirsten becomes a single parent to her vibrant young daughter when her husband is murdered while standing within twenty feet of her.
Desperate to keep Castro from completing his vow and taking two precious lives from her, Kirsten and her daughter begin their desperate search for a safe place where no one can find them. Although Kirsten was once a vocal source of criticism of the Witness Security Program, she has no choice but to opt for the anonymity of the Program when her own attempt at relocating fails.
When Peyton Francis (Kirsten Lord's assumed identity) arrives in Boulder, Colorado, she meets White's series character, Dr. Alan Gregory. As always, Dr. Gregory is a joy to read, but his role is secondary in this novel. It is through him that Peyton finds Carl Luppo, her unlikely white knight who has a violent past and takes on her cause as his own.
This is a thoroughly enjoyable book. It is well written and well-paced, and the secondary characters are fabulous: Landon, Kirsten's smart, witty daughter, and Carl Luppo, Kirsten's sensitive, reformed-hit-man friend. Kirsten Lord's character is likewise very appealing, her weaknesses and her emotional struggles not hampering her resolution to move on nor her fight for her daughter's life. I especially enjoyed White's creativity in the intimate glimpses into Kirsten's life, her thoughts and recollections related as a pod of whales, a "beluga" being a good memory and a "killer whale" one she'd rather not remember. In addition, White's use of a combination of first person & omniscient narrative keeps the story from ever going stale.
For those of you who are not yet fans of Stephen White's Dr. Alan Gregory series, The Program offers a tantalizing glimpse at the wry humor and psychological interplay found in the series, and speaks for itself of White's great storytelling.
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