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- Hardcover: 368 pages
- Publisher: Delacorte Press; ;
(February 4, 2003)
- ISBN: 0385336195
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Book
Description
In a riveting new novel of psychological
suspense, Stephen White shines a brilliant light on the
darkness that hides just beneath the surface of ordinary
lives, on the fears that cripple us and the prisons we create
--prisons of the body, mind, and spirit.
A
thriller of runaway tension, taps into our most closely
guarded fears, taking us on a harrowing journey into a realm
of terror and pain, of love gone wrong and vengeance gone mad.
The Best Revenge
Psychologist Alan Gregory is living through a season of
discontent. With a new daughter, a wonderful wife, and a
prospering career, he has little to complain about and lots of
regrets: past cases that won’t let him go, patients who
don’t get better, and a growing unease with keeping
secrets.
But Gregory has two new patients
who will drag him out of his introspection--and dare him to
enter a storm of
injustice and revenge.
FBI special agent Kelda James is a hero, a woman who as a
rookie agent made a choice, drew her gun, and saved a life,
taking another.
Now Kelda is hiding from the world
a secret pain that is gradually crippling her body--and she
has turned to Alan Gregory to help free her from the prison of
her pain. Then Kelda refers a patient to Gregory, who is
terrifyingly dangerous to them both.
Tom Clone served thirteen years on Colorado’s death row for
a crime he claimed he didn’t commit--until an FBI agent dug
up evidence that set him free.
The agent’s name: Kelda James.
With both Kelda and Clone telling him their innermost secrets,
Alan Gregory becomes the one person who can piece together an
extraordinary puzzle--of two unsolved violent deaths of
vulnerable women, of a man who may be innocent or may be very
lucky, and of the strange, fatal attraction between two people
trapped in a horrific plot to get revenge--at any price.
A thriller that delivers a stunning body-blow of a surprise
ending, captures lives colliding at unpredictable angles,
probing the dangerous lies people tell to each other and
themselves.
In this astonishing work by a
novelist at the height of his powers, Stephen White
brilliantly blends thrilling action and breakneck pacing with
unrivaled insight into the human mind, heart, and psyche.
From
the Back Cover
Stephen White’s thrillers are...
“Shocking, leaving the reader breathless.”
--The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
“Psychological suspense at its best.”
--Jeffery Deaver
“Required reading for thriller fans.”
--The Miami Herald
“Fascinating. Superb. Action-packed.”
--Tulsa World
“A can’t-miss read.”
--Larry King
“Constructed with the dexterity of a surgeon and the
sensitivity of a psychologist.”
--Jonathan Kellerman
“Thrillers of the first order.”
--Nelson DeMille
“Absorbing, intriguing, chilling.”
--The Denver Post
Tom Clone's stay on death row is
over, thanks to new evidence uncovered by Kelda James, a young
FBI agent whose efforts on Clone's behalf have not exactly
endeared her to her colleagues. Referred by that same agent to
psychologist Alan Gregory, Clone is struggling to adapt to
life outside prison.
But others who believe he got off on
a technicality don't agree that the former medical student
deserves his freedom, and they will go to any lengths to make
sure he's punished accordingly for the crime of which he was
once accused.
There are some surprising plot
twists here, but more interesting is Gregory's midlife crisis
and his declining interest in his work: as his partner
responds when he voices doubts about his efficacy as a
therapist, "Those are the bricks we lay.
If you've started hating the bricks,
maybe it's time to reconsider being a brick layer."
Certainly Gregory gets himself into more sinister and
frightening scrapes than most shrinks, and this is one of his
strangest cases. T
he Best Revenge is a solid,
well-reasoned thriller, set in the marvelously drawn Colorado
landscape the author has made his own, with guest appearances
by minor figures familiar to readers of this increasingly
popular psychological suspense series. --Jane Adams
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