Dead Time (Dr. Alan Gregory) (Dr. Alan Gregory) | 
| Author: Stephen White
Creator: Dick Hill
Publisher: Brilliance Audio on CD Unabridged
Category: Book
List Price: $38.95
Buy New: $23.00
You Save: $15.95 (41%)
New (19) Used (8) from $15.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 587222
Format: Audiobook, Cd, Unabridged
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 11
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6.9 x 5.1 x 1.5
ISBN: 1423328884
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781423328889
ASIN: 1423328884
Publication Date: March 4, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
After the shocking developments in Dry Ice, Colorado psychologist Alan Gregory is struggling to deal with his newly adopted son and repair his shaky, though generally improving, marriage. But then Alans ex-wife, Merideth, reappears, seeking help she feels only Alan can give. Suddenly Alan is pulled into a mystery that reaches back years to a camping trip at the Grand Canyon involving Merideths fiance and five friends whose lives were changed forever when a young woman mysteriously vanished from the Canyon floor.
Enlisting the help of friend and detective Sam Purdy, Alan finds himself pitted against new demons and unseen enemies as he tries to uncover the connection between the unexplained disappearance at the Grand Canyon and Merideths missing surrogate. The clock is ticking, and as Alans and Sams investigations take them from New York City to Los Angeles to the cavernous reaches of the Canyon itself, Alan unearths a series of secrets and deceptions that someone wishes to keep buried at all costs.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 24 more reviews...
"Dead Time" is a suspensful thriller for the older crowd. August 10, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Thrilling, cliffhanger novel. I've never read any of Stephen White's novels before but the nice cover and "New York Times Best selling author" definetely attracted me to this book.
PROS:
-Very thrilling! Very fast-paced book, you can expect to finish this book in 1-2 weeks.
-Intricate plot, cliff-hanger, you rarely want to put the book down.
The first 50-100 pages are extremely puzzling, as I had no idea what was going on and I didn't grasp the main character's personality, or predicament. After that, as I got more involved in Alan's personality and lifestyle, I was extremely immersed in the book, reading quickly and no longer stopping to re-examine facts.
-Good length- 400 pages, this book should last the readers a few weeks.
CONS:
-Sometimes ambigious use of vocabulary. I had to use a dictionary for many of the words in the book. But in a way , this improved my vocabulary big-time. It's just that White seems to have a tendency to write the main character's musing thoughts (extraneous) in a sort of reflective tone in which he incorporates higher-level vocabulary such as "sanguine", "poignant", and "surreptitious".
-Switches PoV when you least expect it- PoV being Point of View. Switches numerous times from the main character, Alan, to his Ex-wife, Meredith, evne though Meredith's predicament was not pertinent to the plot.
-Hard to comprehend. The novel is well-written and edited, I won't deny that, but it's sometimes hard to comprehend at what's happening since the style of the book is "fast paced". There's really some illogical and irrelevant data/ presentations by White that don't pertain to the book- maybe about 10-15% of the book contains this data unnecessary for the plot's progression.
I recommend this book for the suspensful. Of course, with most novels of this type, have a dictionary in proximity. It will be useful and make your reading experience of this novel so much better.
*TIP: Don't scrutinize little details in this book. The book is meant for you not to comprehend each and every statement, rather follow along with the author's words. Take the book literally, for the author's WORDS will help you understand the irony and sarcasm going on in the book.
Dick Hill is a great reader.... however, August 6, 2008
Fine book. Maybe could be a little tighter and less repetitious. I'm looking forward to finding out what really happened in Europe.
Now... Dick Hill is a great reader, one of my favorites. However, a good part of this book is told in first person by Alan's ex. Maybe it's just me but whenever she started talking it jarred. Wrong-sex FP narration just doesn't work for me. Never have a problem with dialog in third-person. Funny, huh? Anyway, if that doesn't bother you you'll enjoy the book. If it does, well, you've been warned. (Wasn't Alyssa Bresnahan available to read Meredith's part?)
 Disappointing August 3, 2008
The "His Ex" and "Her Ex" contrivance was annoying and distracting; while some of the dialog much too ethnically-colloquial for my taste.
Dead Time is Pretty Dead July 13, 2008
I've read all of White's books and this one is the weakest of all. His novels tend to be hit or miss in quality but just plain poor writing sinks the minimal effort put forth by the author here. At the end, White thanks his editor. Perhaps he needs a stronger editor, one who will tell him when one of his novels needs a lot of work. The reader could skip this entry and not miss a thing except disappointment and frustration.
 great people in bad situations June 18, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
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 trendy 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.
Dead Time makes use of the series' favorite mode: the flash-back. We re-meet Merideth, Alan's first wife who appeared briefly in the second novel. She's an unsympathetic character presented with skill sufficient to buffer her warts, and her ego-centered plot pulls Alan in. He's in his own Slough of Despond, and fairly unattractive with it. As a portrait of failed and floundering marriages, the book is keenly insightful. There are many, many characters, but each is drawn so clearly that the reader doesn't get confused. White nails the exquisitely self-involved, massively self-righteous world-view of recent undergrads, where no nuance is too small to agonize over, no desire too fleeting for collective scrutiny. The ending leaves us hoping for better days for the Gregory-Crowder clan.
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