Remote Control (Dr. Alan Gregory Series) » (Abridged)

Writers often use elements of their own personalities to craft their most-enduring characters, and Stephen White has certain done so in creating fellow-clinical psychologist Dr. Alan Gregory. However, White s electrifying series of crime thrillers aren t likely to be mistaken for autobiographies anytime soon.

Emma Spire is the daughter of the assassinated Surgeon General of the United States. She has been on the cover of every national magazine. Her beauty, her brains, her bravery - all are public property. Everyone wants a piece of her - and she must escape the feeding frenzy at all costs. But she cannot, and the consequences are deadly.

Thus the stage is set for Dr. Alan Gregory's most stunning, brainteasing crisis yet. The Colorado-based psychologist-sleuth must solve a case of twisted desire and terror to save not only a golden girl pursued by the furies of fame but also his wife, Boulder County D.A. Lauren Crowder, imprisoned on suspicion of murder. For it was Lauren who took Emma under her wing, and it was Lauren who pulled the trigger on the mysterious stalker who menaced Emma's safety and sanity.

Step by step, amid accelerating acts of terror, Alan Gregory suspects he may be dealing not with a sick mind fixated on a fantasy of female perfection but with deadly greed fueled by a high-tech prize that may be worth billions. Meanwhile, his investigation is turned into a desperate race against time as a medical emergency threatens to turn his wife's incarceration into a death sentence.

Publishers Weekly

In this gripping tale, the fifth tale (after Harm's Way) to feature Boulder, Colo., psychologist Alan Gregory, White shifts his focus to Gregory's wife, assistant DA Lauren Crowder. Lauren shoots at the figure of man in a blizzard while trying to protect her friend, Emma Spire, who became an unwilling Kennedy-level celebrity when her father, the U.S. surgeon general, was assassinated by anti-abortion radicals. When the police find a man critically wounded by gunshot in the nearby street, Lauren turns herself in. Emma's fears have been triggered by an attempted kidnapping and by the disappearance of a disk made by her boyfriend, computer genius Ethan Han, who has a special interest in virtual reality. On the disk, Ethan has recorded his neurological responses during their lovemaking. In trying to maintain Emma's privacy, Lauren is cryptic with the police, exacerbating their suspicions of her actions-and causing a flare-up of the symptoms accompanying her multiple sclerosis. Throughout, White cuts between Lauren's jailhouse ordeal and events leading to the arrest. Did Lauren do it, or was another shooter nearby? Is Emma's peril connected to her father's murder? Despite the preposterous premise (experienced prosecutor with impaired vision fires a gun in a blinding snowstorm), White keeps the reader hooked as Lauren, Alan and their attorneys try to establish her innocence. The savvy, sassy lawyers, named Casey and Cozy, deserve their own book. 100,000 first printing; author tour. (Apr.)