THE PROGRAM by Stephen White: A Review

The program in Stephen White’s THE PROGRAM is the Witness Security Program (WITSEC), better known as the Witness Protection Program. Designed to protect people who testify at trials for the prosecution but at great risk to themselves, WITSEC hides those people from others who would harm them by changing their identities and relocating them.

WITSEC is protecting a different type of person in THE PROGRAM, though.

Kirsten Lord was a prosecuting attorney who helped condemn a man to prison. At the end of that trial, the man promised her, “Every precious thing I lose, you will lose two.” And he made good on his promise; he had Lord’s husband murdered.

That was one loss, and Kirsten didn’t want to wait for the second. She was sure the second would be her daughter. So she and her daughter enter WITSEC, relocate to Colorado, and change their names, hers to Peyton, the daughter’s to Landon.

But we soon learn that Kirsten/Peyton has more to fear than the condemned man.

Before that trial, she had spoken out against WITSEC. She saw them protect too many witnesses who should have been in jail, themselves, and went on to commit more crimes. As a result of her complaints, WITSEC received less money and support, and several WITSEC employees lost their jobs. Therefore, now WITSEC resents her and cannot necessarily be trusted.

And there’s another concern: Kirsten had helped condemn another man to death, but she now has doubts about his guilt. Someone wants to stop her reinvestigation of this case.

So now poor Kirsten/Peyton and her daughter have all sorts of people who want to do them harm coming at them, it seems, everywhere they go, all the time. And the really implausible part of the story: Kirsten/Peyton befriends a man who is also in WITSEC, a man who is former Mafia, a man who has murdered several people. Kirsten/Peyton doesn’t trust WITSEC, yet she does trust this murderer.

The book isn’t bad as long as the reader is willing to suspend disbelief.