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Title: A Darker Place by Laurie R. King ISBN: 0-553-57824-3 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 December, 1999 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.37
Rating: 5
Summary: Brilliant thriller
Comment: Almost two decades have passed since the catastrophic event that forever destroyed Professor Anne Waverly's inner peace. Eighteen years ago, the professor of religious studies left a Texas cult whose members, including Anne's spouse and daughter subsequently committed suicide. Anne, blaming herself, has always tried to make up for that disastrous day. So when the FBI asks for her help to infiltrate the California-based Change, she agrees because she figures the group to be led by either maniacs or con artists.
Anne easily joins the group and learns that the leadership is modern day alchemists. She is surprised because she quickly understands that the Change is different than she expected. They believe they have discovered a path to righteousness. Still, they are a cult, willing to risk the innocence of children. Though she suffers from monumental guilt, Anne risks her life to try to protect two of the innocents.
Award winning Laurie R. King shows why she is one of the regal fiction writers of the last few years. A DARKER PLACE highlights the dim environment of a cult so that readers obtain a fascinating and quite interesting look inside a well-designed story line. However, what make this novel so good are Ms. King's characterizations. Motives are obvious and bring various players into full scope. Especially brilliant is Anne, whose dichotomy of feelings makes her one of the best and most compete characters of the decade. Ms. King remains the true king.
Harriet Klausner
Rating: 3
Summary: A fascinating and revealing page-turner
Comment: A Darker Place by Laurie King is a fascinating book which, once I picked up, could not put down until I was finished with it. I did nothing but read this for a few days. It was very riveting. It is a very well-researched, well-written mystery, focussing on Professor Anne Waverly's investigation of a religious cult for the FBI. It also reviews her own tragic history with a cult and her continuing emotional trauma and grief.
The book is very informative about religious cults. The author obviously did a lot of research to write this book and it is interesting. However, she does base this particular cult on the literal, figurative and metaphorical use of alchemy. One does have to be able to tune in to her mindset on this theme.
At times I found it a little ridiculous when it reached extremes but then I realized that many religious cults do have very strange belief systems, some that have led to mass suicides. So the extreme beliefs and actions of the cult's leaders are not so strange when one considers real cults that have or do exist.
Some have questioned the ending and thought the author gave up or didn't know how to end it. I don't agree with that. While I thought the ending "went off the deep end," and was a bit too much, the author did lay the groundwork for her ending. She explained the metaphorical use of alchemy to bring transformations, she explained the destructive inclinations of the cult's leader and let the readers know he was not mentally stable. She did lay the basis for her ending.
Also, she did tell us enough in the end for a satisfactory finish as much as many authors tell us, especially in mysteries. We know what happened to the main characters, to those we cared about.
All in all, I was fascinated by this book--by the writing although I had to suspend belief a few times on the alchemy theory. If a book is that riveting that I can't get anything else done, I consider it a good read. I would recommend it to some people and not others, however, as I know some people would get frustrated with it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Laurie R. King is an amazing writer
Comment: Not only has Laurie R. King created two amazing original series, the Kate Martinelli and Mary Russell books, but she has written this riveting book as well. She is a master at creating suspense, not in a cheesy John Grisham way, but deliberately leaving you hanging at the end of the chapter so you can't wait to turn the page and find out what happens. This book has a lot of interesting psychological discussions of people involved in cults and shows the mentality of the leaders, and the followers. I think King is a very fair and balanced leader and doesn't make the mistake some writers would make with this subject by showing all cult leaders as amoral, or all cults as harmful. The book keeps you hanging until the ending, which is concise bordering on abrupt. I could see how some people were dissapointed with the ending because it was so curt, but in a way, that's more interesting than books with a long drawn out conclusion and typical "happy ending." King leaves it ambiguous and more up to the reader's imagination (or maybe open to a sequel, I'm not sure). Once again, Laurie R. King shines in the world of shallow popular fiction, outstanding among her peers.
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Title: To Play the Fool by Laurie R. King ISBN: 0553574558 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 June, 1996 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: With Child by Laurie R. King ISBN: 0553574582 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: May, 1997 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Folly by Laurie R. King ISBN: 0553381512 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 28 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Night Work: A Kate Martinelli Mystery by Laurie R. King ISBN: 0553578251 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 28 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: A Grave Talent by Laurie R. King ISBN: 0553573993 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 July, 1995 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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