Another in the series I originally got only a few chapters into before putting it down.

Although the story ends on a hopeful note, by not having read it, I didn't really understand the final two books.

It was not a truly satisfying plot line. It was more of a practice of putting Alan into situations where his shortcomings and shortsightedness gets him into all kinds of trouble. ( )

Psychologist Alan Gregory has been contacted by his ex-wife, Meredith. She asked that Alan discreetly contact his police friend, Sam, to help find a young woman, Lisa, who is a surrogate for Meredith and her fiancee, Eric. The pregnant Lisa has disappeared without a trace and Lisa shares a past with Eric. Years ago on a hiking trip into the Grand Canyon a fellow backpacker went missing and was never seen again. Although questioned by the police at the time the hikers were unable to shed any light on the mystery. Now, years later, the secret of the Grand Canyon trip has come back to haunt those involved and the repercussions will threaten the unborn child and Alan himself.

I am a fan of Stephen White's Alan Gregory series from way back. This one was just a bit too convoluted and over-long for me. The mystery was an odd one and the reveal was not particularly satisfying.
( )

In Dead Time, Dr. Alan Gregory is trying to adjust to his new life with his newly adopted son, when his ex-wife turns up asking for Alan’s help in finding the woman who is supposed to be the surrogate mom for her. This disappearance is linked to a camping trip at the Grand Canyon that happened years earlier when another woman had gone missing. As what usually happens in these novels, Alan turns to his friend and detective Sam Purdy. They interview the participants of this camping trip and find that none of the people are willing to be helpful in the investigation.
I wasn’t a big fan of this novel. I found it to be quite convoluted. It was mostly just back and forth talking to different people, analyzing the information, and not a whole lot happening. There was also to much of Alan’s personal life injected into the novel, which really slowed the pace down. It was slow and plodding and the mystery was not terribly interesting. I’ve generally found Stephen White to be mediocre, and this novel is less than mediocre. This might be one you want to skip.
Carl Alves – author of Blood Street ( )

DNF...after about 50 pages, I couldn't keep the slightest interest in what might happen next. Continuously shifting pov between characters who weren't very likable didn't help either. I've liked his prior books about Alan Gregory but this one fell way short. ( )

Normally I don’t dive into a long-running series so far in, but this book was on a sale table and since it was a whopping 99-cents, I decided to give it a go. I should have known from the description that it would be a lot of fluff and very little substance. We’re led to believe all through the novel that someone in the group of 6 friends is at the heart of the mystery. Eric, Merideth’s fiance, is a strong suspect, but I knew he wouldn’t be the guilty party, if only because it was too obvious a set-up. No, it would be one of the other five. Wrong again. A complete outsider is really the culprit and so the emotional impact was pretty negligible. We don’t really get to know the dead girl and so her death isn’t so terrible. We do get to know some of the hiking party and that there would be a viper in their midst would have had a deeper emotional hook.

But it seems Stephen White likes to put his emotional hooks elsewhere. Mostly in Alan’s relationships with everyone else. The most fraught coupling is, creepily, between him and Sam Purdy. Their little heart-felt tete-a-tetes were icky, sappy and felt really fake. Do men talk like this? Even a shrink and a cop, who might live more on the emotional edge than your average Joe? Eh, I didn’t buy it and the scenes went on and on and on like they were in a marriage counseling session. Alan describes one of these talks as an “interlude of intimacy”. Yuk.

Because this book takes place far into the series, there’s a lot of backstory that was alluded to, but not fully explained. As a reader of other long series, I appreciate that and didn't really hold it against White. The whole Jonas situation, while in need of progress for the series as a whole, was distracting and dull. Also the deal with his wife going to Europe to find the kid she gave up for adoption. I didn’t care.

Beyond the problem with the plot was the choppy and very unrhythmic writing. It had no grace, elegance or balance. The best way for me to judge this is to read out loud. If I stumble a lot and get hung up in the sentences; it’s bad. If writing is fluid and graceful I hardly ever make a mistake reading aloud. Damn if I could hardly get through two choked sentences together. Strange word choices and repetitions made me stop and take notice - not a good thing. Plus there were lots of editing problems in my edition which added to the awkward feel. So I guess you can tell this will be my first and last Stephen White book. ( )