Rating: 
Summary: A fascinating and revealing page-turner
Review: 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: 
Summary: Regal look inside a cult
Review: 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, as 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:
Summary: Laurie R. King is an amazing writer
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Anne Waverly might be Laurie King's next best series!
Review: When I noticed that Laurie King had a new book out, I bought it without even checking to see if it was a Kate Martinelli or Mary Russell story. Both of those heroines are so satisfying that it really didn't matter which it concerned. Imagine my delight to meet a new friend-Anne Waverly. I hope that this is the first of many in a long line of Waverly books. King is an adept writer who can take you through the back streets of London with Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, modern day police matters with Kate Martinelli and her crippled, female lover, or - now - penetrate religious cults with Anne Waverly. Far from being a stuffy theologian, Anne is all too vulnerable to the task at hand. Male readers, don't be afraid to try this, or any of King's books. This is not a "chick" writer. I've read some of her other works to my husband, and he is as spell bound as I am. "A Darker Place" had me up until 2:00am several nights until I finished the last page.
Rating: 
Summary: Skip It.
Review: I've enjoyed King's Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes novels and her Kate Martenelli series. She should stick with them. This novel is okay but my main complaint is it bored me to tears. This is pretty much a textbook psycho-mystery thriller -- emphasis on the textbook (read, boring). It's been done before, and done better. I won't waste my time on her new work Folly.
Rating: 
Summary: A Good Read
Review: I really liked this book. I felt like I was right there with her in the story. I think the book was well written. The only thing that I didn't like was that the ending was was kinda abrupt. Hopefully we'll see more of Anne Waverly.
Rating:
Summary: Not Exactly a "Nail-Biter" but Very Interesting
Review: Anne Waverly is a university professor specializing in cults and cult mentalities. When FBI agent Glen McCarthy approaches her for her help in infiltrating a potentially dangerous cult, she says no. This is work she's done for him before, and she doesn't know that she can adopt her other personality as a gullible, innocent, middle-aged woman in search of a place to belong as convincingly as she has in the past. She finally agrees, as Glen knew she would, and starts off to find her way into this cult, Change, in Sedona, Arizona. Change uses the belief that heat and pressure creates change into something better, and centers on alchemy, the practice of turning lead into gold. Her interest in cults and cult mentalities stems from when she, her husband, and her child were in a cult. One day when she went off on her own for some thinking, her husband, her little girl, and the other members of the cult drank poisoned drinks and died. When she encounters a child at Change that could be her little girls twin, she becomes fiercely protective and involved with the little girl and her older brother. As a thriller or suspense, this novel was pretty disappointing. I didn't feel like I was on the edge of my seat, or that it was a "page-turner". I wasn't at all inclined toward biting my nails and I wasn't "horrified". It wasn't much of a mystery, either. It was an interesting story of a woman trying to find out if this cult was dangerous, but that was all. Read this book because it is an interesting account of a cult, seemingly well-researched, but don't expect much more than that.
Rating:
Summary: Intellectually written and well researched.
Review: This is my first book by this author after seeing her speak at a bookshop near home where at least 100 people turned out to listen to her discuss her new book FOLLY. She was interesting and witty and I love a good mystery so I jumped right in. The story leads you into a cult that is rooted by the belief of change and transformation by work and heat. The work that it's followers are led to do is based on the properties of alchemy which is the medieval science pertaining to the transformation of a substance such as lead into silver and gold. The subject on it's own merit caught my attention and seemed quite interesting but I have to say the book dragged on. Anne Waverly goes in as an undercover FBI agent to get to the bottom of things and is immediately paired up with two children that steal her heart away. It becomes her personal mission to save them from this nightmare that has become their life. For a mystery I found this book quite easy to put down, lacking the page turning effect these books usually have on me. I hoped for more as I read deeper into the book but bombastic as the ending was, it wasn't enough to save the book as a whole. I will try another of King's books because she is so highly praised but I would give this book no more than 3.5 stars. Kelsana 5/11/01
Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful book but unsatisfying ending
Review: When compared with other mysteries the book was quite good. The plot develops in an pleasantly deliberate manner. SPOILER WARNING! However, this is the second book I have read recently that depends entirely on the narrator's description of the thoughts of a single character and yet ends with that character unconscious. The author spends hundreds of pages making the reader dependent on the inner monologue and reflections of the main character and then essentially abandons the reader by not providing that character's reflections on the ultimate events in the story. If the main character dies, so be it, but if she is alive, we want to hear from her.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing & boring
Review: I love Laurie King's other books, so I was enormously disappointed that this one has none of her crackling dialogue, wonderful character development and engrossing storytelling. I waited and waited for it to "get started" -- but alas, it never did. Too much intellectualizing, a lot of wordy prose, weak and uninteresting characters. Every writer is entitled to a clunker now and then. I guess this one is King's. I recommend all of her other books highly. Anyone who hasn't read them is missing a real treat!
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