Remote Control

Rating:
Summary: The Liberace of Murder Mysteries
Review: Any guy who describes ordinary, everyday headlights being turned off as "the extinguishing of two vanilla flames," and admires himself for his powers of description, shows very little taste or judgment as a writer. All his books are clotted with these inappropriate flights of fancy-ness (he's the Liberace of murder mysteries), but this one is icky clear through. His characters are real-ish, if tiresomely self absorbed and never quite likeable (his own alter-ego, the doctor, is tediously PC and selfconscious), the plot potentially intriguing enough, when he gets to it, even the dialogue works much of the time, but, as usual, the endless detail of whether you turn right or left to get to his favorite hangouts, the florid descriptions of place and vista which never really come off, those go on for pages and chapters and make you forget whether you ever cared who done it and how come. Bleh.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: As a long time White fan, I read this book shortly after it was released. I raced through it and my overwhelming reaction was "weird." I recently checked out the tape for my husband to read and decided to give the book a second chance. I suspect that the slower pacing of the tape forced me to pay attention to the many details that make this book make sense. The cyber part of the book is still pretty weird but now the mystery worked.

Alan Gregory's wife, Lauren Crowder, has center stage in this book. She's befriended Emma who has been blessed/cursed with Kennedy-like fame after the assassination of her father, the Surgeon General. Emma gets involved with a computer whiz and things start to turn ugly. The book is written in alternating chapters of present time and short-term flashback. In the present time, Lauren is standing outside of Emma's house during a blizzard. She fires her gun to warn off a stranger. The stranger is shot. Lauren is arrested -- and then goes into a medical emergency. Did Lauren shoot the stranger? What's going on in the first place?

This book is complicated. Alan and Lauren, who I normally love, are caught up in hiding too many secrets to be believed. Their refusal to confide in old friend, detective Sam Purdy, stretched their credibility considering all he's been through with them. Still, there are some truly page-turning moments and some good laughs along the way. The vision of the electric pink "bunny" on the snowplow is wonderful.

Bottom-line: This is definately NOT a book to read cold-turkey. Readers are strongly encouraged to have read at least two of the previous four Alan Gregory novels before attempting Remote Control. Then, my advice is to read this one slowly. It's not White's best work but can be a good read with the right approach.

Rating:
Summary: Quick, Alan, Lauren is in trouble!
Review: Could Stephen White have written any more twists into this book? Would it be possible for more characters to be in jeopardy? The book starts out with Emma, the daughter of an assassinated politician, and her quest for privacy. Did Lauren, in an attempt to defend Emma's privacy, shoot someone? Lauren is arrested for what may become capital murder, and the complications from her MS are quickly threatening her life. Alan must not only battle the system to get Lauren to the hospital, but also find a way to solve the crime and get her out of jail. Unfortunately, his own culpability prevents him from being completely honest with his police friend Sam, who might be able to help. This book is full of thrilling legal maneuvering, and White uses a type of flashback writing that really keeps your interest going and your brain working to sort out the events. This book is not as good as some of White's others, but it is definitely worth the read for White's avid fans.

Rating:
Summary: Contrived, tedious, nothing new here
Review: I don't know about the book, but the audiotape was tedious and uninteresting, the only redemption coming from Dick Hill's narration....it's amazing how many voices he did on this audiotape....but that's how many characters there are, tripping over each other's feet, as it were. Well, there's Dr. Alan Gregory and his wife, Lauren, the protagonists sort of, but don't forget Emma, who is an intern under Laura in the Boulder (Colorado?) D.A.'s office, where Laura is a D.A. Then there's the polices, Scott Malloy and a veteran whose name I can't recall. Then there's Emma's private security, a guy who used to work for the Secret Service but ends up shot and run over by the villain, J.P. Morgan. Heard that name somewhere before, have we? J.P. Morgan is a financial partner with Ethan Hahn, an inventor who has found a way to transduce bodily movements into bits, which sounds something like EMR or tomography. But anyway, Ethan gets a little carried away and wears the transducer while he's making love to Emma (it's a long story). Then there's Raul Estevez and his wife, another shrink (like Gregory). Did I leave anybody out? Like I said, tedious and contrived. What ever happened to creativity? I don't mean dreaming up fantastic, totally improbable circumstances to drive a plot, but real inventiveness. Well, that's not Stephen White's concern, I suppose. And why should it be? In a 100 years, who will care one way or the other? Diximus.

Rating:
Summary: Who Cares??
Review: I have never been moved to write a review for any book (good or bad), but this one simply infuriated me! The tedious characters are beautiful, rich people with problems that I just didn't care about. What did Emma DO to become so popular? As far as I could tell, all she did was keep up her pretty hair (Why are these beauties always blessed with "chestnut" hair?). Did she ever actually DO anything? I just wanted to slap her and tell her to stop being so self-absorbed. Plus, since when do these "beautiful" locals hang out at the Boulder mall? Wouldn't famous people such as Emma be concerned about being recognized by all the tourists, not to mention the papparazzi that would obviously care so much about a daughter of a dead surgeon general? (Who??? - Does anyone know who the current surgeon general is, much less the stories of their family members?) Also, I can't seem to figure out why the geographic references bothered me so much in this book. Maybe because they were the only detail supplied that meant anything. Why do I have to know that Dr. Gregory's favorite Nick 'n Willy's pizza is garlic and basil? The characters were far too perfect to eat or sleep. And since when do people call every doctor they meet or know "Doctor"? About half way through, the story got very confusing with shootings, victims, police officers and numerous doctors. After weeding through this mess, the reader is left with the same amount of information and still no reason to finish the book except that it gives a reader a purpose. My purpose is to make sure none of my friends or relatives ever pursue this writer's work unless they want to sit and complain with me.

Rating:
Summary: Best of White's Books to date
Review: I have read all of Stephen White's books, and this is the best one yet. I could hardly believe it when I reached the end. I began reading the book and then "boom" it was over and I don't think I had taken a breath during the whole thing. The main characters were all familiar from his previous books, but this time they were like old friends and not just names on a page. The plot of the book, which involves high tech use of computer and the abuse heaped by the press on celebrities, is timely and intriguingly combined. Hats off to White and I hope that he hurries his next Allen Gregory book along.

Rating:
Summary: Underappreciated writer, good book.
Review: Stephen White, Remote Control (Signet, 1997)

Remote Control is very much one of _those_ mysteries, the kind that makes you read a couple of paragraphs at every stoplight. (Please control the urge to read while driving.) By now, we should all be familiar with White's cast of characters (Remote Control is the fourth Alan Gregory, psychiatrist-turned-don't-wanna-be-detective, novel) and his method of dropping loads of bricks on us when we're not looking, and slipping the clues in while we're still rubbing our head and cursing the building contractors. This time around, White gives us a self-absorbed technowhiz entrepreneur, a law-student intern with a recently-dead Senator father who falls head over heels for him, his abrasive partner, and a parallel thread running through the novel at the end of everything, where Alan's wife Lauren is being interrogated for the shooting of an unidentified man. Problem is, no one, including Lauren, is sure she actually shot the guy.

Yes, it all comes together perfectly (think Memento, except that both threads are moving forward-- one just moves more slowly than the other). White is one of those guys who writes good, clean, fun mysteries that are on the level of the big guns, but never gets the press they do. If you haven't yet picked up a Stephen White novel, give him a shot next time the New York Times Bestseller types are between books. *** 1/2

Rating:
Summary: Remote Control
Review: The turns and twists of the plot are very interesting considering you are dealing with a period of approximately only twenty four hours. I love thrillers, Grishom, Sanford, Patterson, etc. and I rank White right up there with them. I have MS as does Alan's wife and Stephen White either knows someone who has it or has done a great deal of research, becuase he is right on in his portrail of Lauren and her systoms and reactions to life in general. It is refreshing to read something that makes an MS patient a real person and an intregal part of a realistic story. I would highly recommend this to thriller fans and MS patients that would like to see a fellow sufferer portrayed in a positive way.

Rating:
Summary: Weak story, weak characters, weak book
Review: This was my first SW book and probably my last. The plot was interesting for about 30 pages and then simply stopped being interesting. Unbelievable characters - I hate it when the protagonists in a series have earth shattering, life threatening experiences in every book - and the McGuffin held my interest for about 0 seconds. Too much put into too many pages. Additionally, what drove me crazy were all these similar sounding names of the main characters (Casy - Cozy, Sam - Scott). And there were too many characters, 2 policemen, 2 lawyers, very confusing. The only reason I gave it 2 stars is the fact that I read it completely and didn't throw it out after 50 pages as I usually do with duds.