Stephen White Books in Order
Explore Stephen White books in order, with quick summaries, Alan Gregory reading order, series background, and clear tips on where to start.
Last updated: June 8, 2026
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Publication Order
20 books
Privileged Information
by Stephen White
1991
When several of Alan Gregory's female patients die, suspicion lands on him. The only evidence that might clear his name is protected by doctor-patient privilege, and the killer may be sitting in his office.
Private Practices
by Stephen White
1993
Alan Gregory's practice turns into a crime scene after a brutal attack, and a blizzard cuts off easy answers. A troubled teenage patient, two suspicious deaths, and too many secrets push him into dangerous territory.
Higher Authority
by Stephen White
1994
A high-profile sexual harassment case throws attorney Lauren Crowder into a storm of missing evidence and murder. Alan Gregory is pulled into a legal and political nightmare with deadly stakes.
Harm's Way
by Stephen White
1996
After a close friend is murdered, Alan helps build a profile of the killer and starts uncovering ugly secrets about the dead man's past. The search pulls him into grief, doubt, and real physical danger.
Remote Control
by Stephen White
1997
A shocking act of violence leaves Lauren Crowder under suspicion for murder while another woman is threatened by a hidden attacker. Alan must untangle fame, greed, and a secret someone will kill to protect.
Critical Conditions
by Stephen White
1998
Alan is drawn into a family's medical nightmare when a desperately ill child is denied treatment and a teenager attempts suicide. Corporate power, buried violence, and one murder turn private tragedy into something far darker.
Manner of Death
by Stephen White
1999
At a former colleague's funeral, Alan learns that a string of old accidents may actually be murders. Digging into the past puts his marriage, his memories, and his life in a killer's sights.
Cold Case
by Stephen White
2000
Alan is asked to build a psychological profile in the reopened case of two murdered teenage girls. The deeper he digs into their lives, the more the old crime starts destroying the present.
The Program
by Stephen White
2001
After a condemned man vows revenge, prosecutor Kirsten Lord enters witness protection with her daughter. Boulder feels safe until Alan Gregory realizes the danger may be coming from inside the program itself.
Warning Signs
by Stephen White
2002
Boulder's district attorney is murdered, and the case hits close to home because Alan's wife once worked for him. Then a frightened new patient suggests another crime is coming, and Alan faces a brutal ethical trap.
The Best Revenge
by Stephen White
2003
Alan takes on two difficult patients, an FBI agent hiding severe pain and a man freed from death row. Their secrets collide in a case about wrongful conviction, obsession, and revenge that refuses to stay buried.
Blinded
by Stephen White
2004
A beautiful new patient tells Alan she fears her husband has already killed once and will kill again. What begins as a troubled marriage case turns into a tense hunt for a possible serial murderer.
Missing Persons
by Stephen White
2005
When fellow therapist Hannah Grant dies suddenly, Alan follows the clues she left behind and starts questioning people he thought he knew. A missing patient and a fragile client may hold the key to both mysteries.
Kill Me
by Stephen White
2006
A wealthy thrill-seeker joins a secret group that promises to end his life if illness ever takes everything from him. The deal seems rational until he discovers the price of control may be murder.
Dry Ice
by Stephen White
2007
Michael McClelland, the killer from Alan's first case, escapes the hospital and comes hunting for revenge. Alan must protect his family while facing the buried secrets that give his enemy the edge.
Dead Time
by Stephen White
2008
Alan's ex-wife asks for help when the surrogate carrying her child disappears. The case reaches back to an older disappearance near the Grand Canyon and cracks open painful truths from Alan's past.
The Siege
by Stephen White
2009
Sam Purdy joins an emergency investigation at Yale after several powerful men's sons disappear. As hostages are killed one by one, the hunt becomes a no-rules race against a patient, invisible enemy.
The Last Lie
by Stephen White
2010
A rape accusation after a wealthy neighbor's party rattles Boulder, and Alan finds himself with a troubling angle on what really happened. Before he can make sense of it, witnesses start dying.
Line of Fire
by Stephen White
2012
An old investigation into J. Winter Brown's death heats up again, threatening to expose Alan and Sam Purdy's buried role in it. At the same time, a strange new patient seems dangerously close to Alan's private life.
Compound Fractures
by Stephen White
2013
As old allies and long-absent figures return, Alan is forced back to an ethical crisis from his early career. A deadly mystery in Eldorado Springs becomes the final test of who he can still trust.
Where should I start?
If you want the full story from the start: Privileged Information → Private Practices → Higher Authority
If you want classic Boulder suspense: Remote Control → Cold Case → Warning Signs
If you want darker later books: Kill Me → Dry Ice → Dead Time
If you want the planned ending: The Last Lie → Line of Fire → Compound Fractures
Author bio
Stephen White was born on Long Island in 1951 and grew up in New York, New Jersey, and Southern California. His route to writing was anything but tidy. He spent time at the University of California campuses at Irvine and Los Angeles, then graduated from Berkeley in 1972.
He even tried majoring in creative writing at Irvine, but only for about three weeks. Before settling into a profession, he learned to fly small planes, worked as a tour guide at Universal Studios, cooked and waited tables in Berkeley, and tended bar in Boulder.
That wandering start shows up in his books.
White eventually trained as a clinical psychologist and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado in 1979. Early in his career he studied the psychological effects of marital disruption, especially on men, and published professional research on the subject. He later worked at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and at The Children's Hospital in Denver, where he focused on pediatric cancer patients and their families.
That hospital work mattered.
During those years he met Jonathan Kellerman, another psychologist who was building a fiction career of his own. White has said that meeting Kellerman helped make the idea seem possible, even if he did not realize it right away. At the time, White was still very much inside the world of clinical practice, reading crime fiction for escape rather than imagining himself as part of it.
Then a computer changed things. In the late 1980s, while running an outpatient adult practice in Boulder, he bought a portable computer and tried to learn the word-processing software by writing a short story about a psychotherapy and legal dilemma. He expected a few pages. Instead, the project kept growing, and in less than six months it became his first novel, Privileged Information, published in 1991.
That book introduced Dr. Alan Gregory, a Boulder psychologist who keeps getting drawn into murders, disappearances, and ethical traps. Readers responded to the mix of genuine therapy-room detail and strong suspense, and White kept expanding Gregory's world through books like Harm's Way, Remote Control, The Program, Kill Me, and The Last Lie. Across the series, he wrote about secrecy, guilt, marriage, illness, loyalty, and the strange ways ordinary lives can tip into danger.
White has often said that years of listening to patients taught him how people actually talk. That may be the clearest link between the psychologist and the novelist. His books are full of sharp conversation, mixed motives, and characters who rarely understand themselves as well as they think they do. He has also spoken openly about living with multiple sclerosis, something readers can feel in the humane, unsentimental way the Alan Gregory books deal with illness.
He eventually chose to end the Alan Gregory series on purpose, closing it with the two-part finale of Line of Fire and Compound Fractures. That feels very Stephen White. Even in his most fast-moving thrillers, he was interested in consequences and follow-through, not just shocks.
He lives in Colorado, and Boulder remains the emotional home of his fiction. The city is not just a backdrop in these books. It is part of their weather, their pressure, and their mood.
Edited by
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