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Book Summary and Reviews of The Siege by Stephen White

The Siege by Stephen White

The Siege

by Stephen White

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  • Published:
  • Aug 2009, 416 pages
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Book Summary

In The Siege, Gregory’s longtime friend Sam Purdy takes center stage in a story that feels ripped from tomorrow’s headlines. From the first page on, readers need to be buckled in for a nonstop ride full of terror and pathos. As a lovely weekend approaches on the Yale campus it appears that a number of students—including the sons of both the Secretary of the Army and newest Supreme Court justice—may have gone missing. Kidnapping? Terrorism? The authorities aren’t sure. But the high-profile disappearances draw the attention of the CIA and the FBI’s vaunted Hostage Rescue Team. Attention quickly focuses on the fortress-like tomb of one of Yale’s secret societies. Suspended Boulder police detective Sam Purdy soon finds himself in New Haven, where he is quickly snared by an unlikely pair of Feds: FBI agent Christopher Poe and CIA analyst Deirdre Drake. Sam, Poe, and Dee join together, desperately trying to solve the riddle of what is going on inside the windowless stone tomb on the edge of campus. The clock is pounding in their ears. The unknown enemy is playing by no known rules . . . is making no demands . . . is refusing to communicate with the hostage negotiator . . . is somehow anticipating every FBI move . . . is completely unconcerned about getting away . . . And . . . is sending students, one by one, out of the building’s front door to die.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Brilliantly conceived and executed, this intellectually challenging and provocative thriller brings home the lesson that 9/11 might have been a mere prelude to more sophisticated assaults. " - Publishers Weekly

"Starred Review. This is an outstanding book that should prove popular and may increase demand for White's previous titles." - Library Journal

This information about The Siege was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Stephen White Author Biography

Stephen White is the author of the New York Times bestselling Alan Gregory novels. In his books, he draws upon over fifteen years of clinical practice as a psychologist to create intriguing plots and complex, believable characters.

Born on Long Island, White grew up in New York, New Jersey, and Southern California and attended the University of California campuses at Irvine (where he lasted three weeks as a creative writing major) and Los Angeles before graduating from Berkeley in 1972. Along the way he learned to fly small planes, worked as a tour guide at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, cooked and waited tables at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, and tended bar at the Red Lion Inn in Boulder.

Trained as a clinical psychologist, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado in ...

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