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 Hardcover edition.

**

Amazon.com Review

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. The 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

From Library Journal

New evidence proves that Tom Clone did not commit murder, but after 13 years in prison, he has developed dark tendencies that psychologist Alan Gregory may not be able to conquer.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.