Remote Control (Alan Gregory)

After her father is assassinated, beautiful Emma Spire retreats to Colorado in search of privacy, but when someone stalking her is shot by a friend, the situation escalates, and Dr. Alan Gregory takes on the most personal case of his career. 100,000 first printing. Tour.

An unexpected role for clinical psychologist Dr. Alan Gregory's wife, Boulder County Deputy D.A. Lauren Crowder: This time she isn't going after bad guys (Higher Authority, 1994), but trying to keep the cops from jailing her for shooting a mysterious stalker. White starts off with two bangs. First, Emma Spire watches in horror as her Surgeon General father is killed by an indignant right-to-lifer; then, after a leap of two years, Lauren, who's taken Emma under her wing as an intern, fires a shot at a threatening intruder at Emma's place. Weaving back and forth in time, White alternates scenes of Lauren's cop friends rapidly turning on her, duly shocked that she'd lawyer herself up if she has nothing to hide, with flashbacks showing an attempted kidnapping that explains why Emma, already a media darling in the ugliest way possible, is so terrified of strangers. But it's Emma's new lover, computerized-prosthesis wizard Ethan Han, who's hiding the scariest secret of all: a software package that records physical sensations with such uncanny accuracy that when a CD-ROM enshrining his feelings during a marathon lovemaking session with Emma is stolen, she cries to Lauren and Alan: ``I am about to become shareware.'' Did the kidnappers return to rape a virtual Emma? Did Kevin Quirk, the smitten former Secret Service bodyguard Emma begged to help her, turn on her instead? Or did Ethan himself only claim the disk was stolen? Adept as White is at spinning out the criminal possibilities, the real fun here is watching Lauren, secretly afflicted by MS and nearly blinded by optic neuritis, surround herself with a formidable battery of doctors and lawyers that will keep cops and prison at bay while her more mobile allies comb the snowy crime scene for the evidence she prays will clear her. Nonstop injections of adrenaline make this White's finest hour, even if the main action lasts only a single night. Only the cluttered denouement is a letdown. (First printing of 100,000; author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Emma Spires finds herself a favorite of the American public when her father, the surgeon general of the U.S., is assassinated. The adulation, however, proves a burden. After a stint living the high life in Hollywood, where she has a much publicized and unfortunate love affair with a famous actor, Emma moves to Boulder, Colorado, and interns at the state's attorney's office. Her boss there is Lauren Crowder, the wife of Dr. Alan Gregory, a recurring character in White's novels. Lauren, impressed by Emma's fame yet aware of its downside, befriends the troubled celebrity. Emma's problems escalate when she discovers that the wild night she spent with a technological genius has been recorded (using a new system developed by the genius) and is about to be leaked to the public. Alan's fears that Lauren may be getting too close to Emma are realized when she calls him from the police station, where she is being questioned in a shooting outside Emma's home. White delivers an offbeat, futuristic story with both realistic characters and surrealistic elements. Although Alan Gregory plays a minor role here, the success of White's previous Gregory novels will help create demand for this one. Mary Frances Wilkens

In his fifth Alan Gregory novel (following Harms Way, LJ 2/1/95), White unwinds a tightly constructed thriller involving attempted murder, high technology, and politics. Psychologist and amateur sleuth Gregory here plays a supporting role to his new wife, Deputy D.A. Lauren Crowder, who's charged with shooting a man to protect her law intern, Emma Spire. At the center of the story is Emma, a media darling for her courage years earlier when her surgeon general father was assassinated for his freedom-of-choice views and died in her arms. Desperately trying to protect her privacy, Emma finds herself vulnerable to unimaginable violation after becoming romantically involved with high-tech wizard Ethan Han, and she turns to Lauren and Alan for help. White shows sensitivity in his characterizations, in dealing with Lauren's multiple sclerosis, and in giving a D.A.'s view of what an arrested person endures. He has another top-notch page-turner here.?Michele Leber, Fairfax Cty. P. L., Va.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.