Missing Persons
Stephen White
Dutton, Mar 2005, $25.95, 352 pages, ISBN: 0525948597
reviewed by Harriet Klausner

Psychologist Alan Gregory does not want to get involved in the missing persons case of Mallory Miller, who lives in the same neighborhood as Jon Benet Ramsey. The two used to play together as children and now Mallory vanished on the eighth anniversary of Jon Benet’s death. Circumstances draw a reluctant Alan into the case because his colleague Diane Estevez consulted with her now deceased friend Hannah Grant about a girl who fit Mallory’s description coming into the office for a session. The patient was worried about her mother, a schizophrenic living in Vegas apart from her husband and children.

Alan’s schizoid patient Bob implies that he knows something about Mallory’s disappearance, but patient privilege prevents Alan from saying anything to anyone. Bob disappears and when Diane goes to Vegas to meet with Mallory’s mother, she also vanishes. Alan might have to risk losing his license to practice psychology, but he knows he must reveal what Bob and Diane told him to the police to rescue the missing people.

MISSING PERSONS graphically describes how medical privilege can be a two edge sword when it protects the rights of a patient bit impedes a police investigation. Alan is realistically portrayed as a doctor filled with doubts on what is the morally right thing to do. His dilemma on top of a fast-paced, action filled story line grips the audience. Though Stephen White enables his protagonist to wiggle somewhat free of his quandary, he remains concerned that he played loose with acceptable medical ethics. Mr. White delivers a pulse pounder that cleverly combines a tense medical thriller with a police procedural amateur sleuth tale.