A Darker Place [Mass Market Paperback]

Laurie R. King (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1999

Called "one of the most original talents to emerge in the '90s" by Kirkus Reviews, award-winning author Laurie R. King delivers an intelligent, terrifying, engrossing drama of good and evil, unlike any she has written before....

A respected university professor, Anne Waverly has a past known to few: Years ago, her own unwitting act cost Anne her husband and daughter. Fewer still know that this history and her academic specialty--alternative religious movements--have made her a brilliant FBI operative. Four times she has infiltrated suspect communities, escaping her own memories of loss and carnage to find a measure of atonement. Now, as she begins to savor life once more, she has no intention of taking another assignment. Until she learns of more than one hundred children living in the Change movement's Arizona compound....

Anne soon realizes that Change is no ordinary community and hers is no ordinary mission. For, far from appeasing the demons of her past, this assignment is sweeping her back into their clutches...and to the razor's edge of danger.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Laurie King's 1993 debut novel, A Grave Talent, won American and British honors for Best First Crime Novel, and it quickly established a loyal following for her series featuring San Francisco detectives Kate Martinelli and Alonzo Hawkins. She followed up that early success with a clever expansion of the Sherlock Holmes mythos, The Beekeeper's Apprentice. That novel, and the three that succeeded it, partnered Holmes with Mary Russell--a woman very much Holmes's equal in spirit and mind despite her young age. A Darker Place is King's first book to break from these series as she continues to pioneer new territory between literary and thriller fiction.

The success of A Darker Place comes from its slow revelation of the back story, which illuminates the major players: Anne Waverly, Glen McCarthy, and the people of Change. King brilliantly portrays the psychological split that drives Anne to self-destruction, both in her sexual relationships and in her self-effacing work for the FBI. Though a respected university professor and expert on cults, Anne Waverly was once a cultist herself. For 18 years she has struggled with personal tragedies that wrenched her from that experience, and she has dedicated herself (through academic labor and her covert work for the FBI) to saving the lives of others who become embroiled in religious fanaticism. Now, despite a vow that she has ended her relationship with the FBI and its work in defusing cults, she returns for one last effort at the request of Agent McCarthy. Anne cuts her hair, changes her name, and gradually loses herself in her new role as a member of Change. But her investigation soon becomes a journey into her own psyche, into the dark places of her past, as she sees her own life played out again in the members of the cult. --Patrick O'Kelley --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

King, author of the Kate Martinelli crime novels (With Child) and Mary Russell detective series (The Moor), applies her renegade talents to a suspenseful tale in which a woman penetrates the treacherous realm of religious cults in order to save its victims. Anne Waverly, a professor of religious studies at a small Oregon university, is an erstwhile FBI operative whose traumatic past has shaped her skills for infiltrating fringe religious groups: 18 years before, her departure from a Texas commune precipitated a Jonestown-like mass suicide that claimed her husband and young daughter. Haunted by their memory, she agrees to investigate Change, a Northern California commune dedicated to rehabilitating troubled youths. But once inside, under the alias Ana Wakefield, Anne discovers that Change's leaders are modern-day alchemists, who believe that, with the right combination of elements, a spiritual transformation is possible; the innocence of children and a sexual union of yin and yang will detonate the compound with the desired apocalyptic explosion. King presents Change's leaders as neither simplistic opportunists nor frenzied maniacs, but rather as methodical true believers who inhabit an ambiguous and dangerous middle ground. Anne is equally hard to pigeonhole, a feisty, independent woman whose guilt about her family tragedy leads to a misplaced sense of responsibility toward two of the commune's young wards. Anne's self-destructive tendencies are deftly juxtaposed with her fierce survivor's strength, and her frank sexuality and emotional needs are refreshingly rendered. She is a complicated and enigmatic heroine who perfectly fits the task of illuminating the shadowy world of religious cults.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (December 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553578243
• ISBN-13: 978-0553578249
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1.1 x 6.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (66 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #148,786 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

New York Times bestselling crime writer Laurie R. King writes both series and standalone novels.

In the Mary Russell series (first entry: The Beekeeper's Apprentice), fifteen-year-old Russell meets Sherlock Holmes on the Sussex Downs in 1915, becoming his apprentice, then his partner. The series follows their amiably contentious partnership into the 1920s as they challenge each other to ever greater feats of detection.

The Kate Martinelli series, starting with A Grave Talent, concerns a San Francisco homicide inspector, her SFPD partner, and her life partner. In the course of the series, Kate encounters a female Rembrandt, a modern-day Holy Fool, two difficult teenagers, a manifestation of the goddess Kali and an eighty-year-old manuscript concerning'Sherlock Holmes.

King also has written stand-alone novels--the historical thriller Touchstone, A Darker Place, two loosely linked novels'Folly and Keeping Watch--and a science fiction novel, Califia's Daughters, under the pseudonym Leigh Richards.

King grew up reading her way through libraries like a termite through balsa before going on to become a mother, builder, world traveler, and theologian.

She has now settled into a genteel life of crime, back in her native northern California. She has a secondary residence in cyberspace, where she enjoys meeting readers in her Virtual Book Club and on her blog.

King has won the Edgar and Creasey awards (for A Grave Talent), the Nero (for A Monstrous Regiment of Women) and the MacCavity (for Folly); her nominations include the Agatha, the Orange, the Barry, and two more Edgars. She was also given an honorary doctorate from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific.

Check out King's website, http://laurierking.com/, and follow the links to her blog and Virtual Book Club, featuring monthly discussions of her work, with regular visits from the author herself. And for regular LRK updates, follow the link to sign up for her email newsletter.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laurie R. King is an amazing writer, August 15, 2001

By 

"julies_27" - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Darker Place (Mass Market Paperback)

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.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars dark, sinister, with great character development and build, March 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Darker Place (Hardcover)

Laurie King has been one of my favorites, both for her tortured policewoman and of course for Mary Russell. Such chutzpah - to give Holmes a wife at his age! But the stories have a wonderful plot and sinister rise with anticipation. Thus, I started this book with grave (get it?) anticipation. The characterizations and character development is incredibly excellent. Ana is wonderfully drawn and executed and very believeable as is her FBI contact. The children, too. I kept wondering if I had missed a book of LKing's. Had she written one with these characters before? And it is not yet published? The flashbacks were too substantial and yet too wispy. If there was no previous book there needed more explanation. The plot was very suspenseful and I quivered with anticipation. I read very slowly as the evil got worse and worse. I did not understand why they had to go to England, I guess it is as good as Montana, but I think people are less likely to be left alone in cults there. I have reread the ending 4 times and still don't understand it. It just sort of fell apart. I need an epilogue, not just a pulse at the end. Something between Ana and Jason or the FBI man something. I will read it again, but will write my own ending.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A bit of a disappointment., September 10, 2000

By 

MLPlayfair (Ravenna, OH) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: A Darker Place (Mass Market Paperback)

This book was a bit disappointing. After all, Laurie King's Mary Russell series is a humdinger. Those are real page-turners. This one was not. OK, OK, there were places where the pages couldn't turn fast enough, but really very few. The main character was very well drawn, but it kind of slumped into the realm of romance novel, which it really needn't have done. I suppose it's my own fault for having read so much about cults -- this one just didn't have the ring of truth. And it didn't seem scary enough for all the concern. The ending seemed implausible. Ah, well, it won't keep me from reading the others in my Laurie King library. But try it out for yourself: This one came highly recommended, so obviously somebody out there loved it.

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