Rating: 
Summary: A Damn Good Read
Review: A very original kind of mystery thriller. Stephen White has a gift of placing himself in the reader's shoes. He has learned how to introduce a large cast of characters and yet to make each character so memorable that you do not confuse who-is-who. I only wish other writers would take note. The plot is quite different as is the method of telling the story. There is not so much mystery here as there is entertainment. The how-and-why are more important to White than the who. Held my interest from start to finish - and I wished there was more.
Rating: 
Summary: Political Psychology and Murder
Review: Alan Gregory and his wife, Lauren Crowder, an Assistant District Attorney, are invited in as guests to a law enforcement society dedicated to solving the unsolved crimes of the nation. their role is to help find the killer of two teenage girls in steamboat Springs, over a decade earlier.Alan a clinical psychologist quickly falls into a mire of political crime and intrigue as one crime leads to questions about other crimes. The tension and the plot build towards a most unexpected conclusion. Lucky for Alan, everyone wants to tell their story to a shrink before they kill him. Enjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: Although this novel held me in suspense a great deal of the time, I found sections of it quite boring, and I was less than satisfied with the ending.
Dr. Alan Gregory, and his wife Lauren (the Boulder County assistant district attorney), are invited to help in solving a 10 year old, unsolved case involving the murders of two teenage girls. An organization by the name of Locard, which is an elite group of prosecutors, forensic specialits, etc., have decided to reopen the case at the request of one of the victims parents. As Dr. Gregory, Lauren, and the members of Locard pursue their investigation, they begin to find a questionable relationship that had evolved between a former psychologist turned U.S. Congressman, and one of the murdered girls, as well as a crime perpatrated against one of the victims sisters, by none other than a famous sports celebrity who also happens to be a relative of the other murdered girl. The plot holds many twists, turns, and surprises, and can be quite intriguing at times.
I found the Locard members to be very interesting characters, as well as Dr. Gregory's new-found friend, Dorothy, who is a reporter for the Washington Post. However, this is not one of my favorite Stephen White novels. It's worth reading, yet I doubt that I would pick it up for a second round.
Rating: 
Summary: Misses The Mark
Review: An interesting beginning. A little action toward the end. The rest of the story is filled with mind numbing details. Do we really need to know how Satoshi eats her yogurt? Sometimes these little details add color to a story, but when they constitute a large portion of the tale, they slow the pace and are very annoying. There is a big mistake on page 81. White refers to crime scene tape setting up a second perimeter and denying access to the body. There is no body. The character is missing. I have enjoyed all of White's previous novels, but he misses the mark with this one.
Rating:
Summary: I'm not THAT easily entertained ;-)
Review: As a new resident of Boulder County, I have enjoyed Stephen White's thrillers, even though I usually steer clear of the genre. His stories entertain me, which is about all I ask of a mass-market paperback. Here as in his other books, the bad guys (and gals) get theirs in definitive and rather original fashion -- and, alas, usually an innocent victim gets it, too, rather like life. It's true that my steam for this particular story ran out in the last hundred pages or so; I had to fight impulses to sneak peek at the last few pages. But it was rewarding enough to power on through to the end. Readers who complain that this book didn't give them the "why" of characters' actions were not paying attention. I hope Stephen White will bring back A.J. Simes and her sidekick in future stories. I wouldn't mind seeing more of some the the Locard group characters, as well. This book does not pretend to be more than it is: a fairly engaging read with some corpses thrown in for prurient interest. Take it for what it is and it is hard to think you'll be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Not Great Thriller...
Review: Clinical psychologist Alan Gregory and his wife Lauren Crowder are asked to join a select group of law enforcement officials whose specialty is Cold Cases or old unsolved murders. The murder they are called in on is one involving two young girls who vanished and were found dead months later. One of the girls family requests the groups help in solving the case. This book starts off great and then slows down considerably. I really like the main characters, Alan and Lauren. The rest of the group was interesting as well. I just wish the ending wasn't so predictable and had given these interesting people a more plausable way out!
Rating:
Summary: exciting and boring?
Review: Cold Case has an exiting plot and colorful characters and plenty of twists and turns, yet author Stephen White manages to make it about as boring as possible. This is my first time to read this author. To me, there was no emotion in his writing. I never felt for the characters. There wasn't much action since most of the plot revolved around the lives of characters and the revealing of long buried secrets. Still, White couldn't even make the personal lives of the characters exciting. White also made the mistake that I've seen a lot in movies but not really in books. White is obviously a liberal based on his writing. In Cold Case, there is a congressman and his chief of staff who we are supposed to think are bad guys (maybe they are, maybe they aren't, I won't say.) But one of the characteristics he gives them is being pro gun control and fans of Rush Limbaugh. Because of those traits, we are supposed to side with Dr. Alan Gregory and not like those two people. It is so shallow to for an author do something like that. It is obvious that White doesn't understand why conservatives believe what they believe. Still, that shallow characterization didn't bother me that much. The book just seemed to lack passion. I probably won't read another. I will say that I enjoyed the fact there wasn't tons of sex and bad language in this book. That was nice for a change to read about characters that didn't swear every other word.
Rating:
Summary: enjoy the ride
Review: Cold Case is the story of a bunch of criminal specialists who take on the challenge of trying to solve old unsolved cases. The case was the murder of two teenage girls, who disappeared one winter night in Colorado and whose mutilated bodies were not found until springtime when the snow melted. The story is told through the eyes of Alan Gregory, a psychologist whose job was to learn as much as possible about the girls in an effort to help identify their killer. Gregory delved into their history stirring up a pot of intrigue involving Senator Welles and one of the victim's brother, a highly popular golfing pro. Gregory tries to untangle the conflicting impressions about each girl, an assasination attempt, investigations regarding Senator Welle's campaign finances, and the possibility of Welle's unprofessional arrangment with several patients. The pace is somewhat slow in the beginning but steadily builds to a whirlwind finish of suspense. It was a fun fast read and a great book to enjoy on the beach or vacation.
Rating:
Summary: Precision mysteries, well above most of the market.
Review: Despite being quite a ways into the series, _Cold Case_ is not lacking the inventiveness and incisiveness that has made the Alan Gregory novels a cut above the rest (no pun intended). The idea of the Vidocq society is a good one, and gives Gregory a new way of getting involved with interesting crimes. I found the depiction of the motivation behind the case particularly well done. If there's any complaint to be made at all it's that the clarity White always uses perhaps shifted sideways into actually being too chilly-- there's a certain coldness in the writing that there hasn't been in some of my favorite other books in the series. But tastes shall certainly differ about whether you like that or not, so don't let that dissuade you from giving this fine mystery a go.
Rating: 
Summary: Stephen White's arrogance clearly shines through...
Review: Either the writer himself is an arrogant man or has a majestic ability to infuse his narrator with the trait. His clear antipathy for some of his characters breeds an unpleasant experience. This will be my first and last Stephen White book.
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