Rating: 
Summary: A mystical thriller but not much mystery
Review: This review is based on the 10 tape unabridged audio book.Fans of the The Beekeeper's Apprentice will be in for a shock in reading this book. Kate Martinelli fan shouldn't be quite so surprised for the concept of cults has been featured in the Martinelli series. For this is not a murder mystery, who-dun-it, in any kind of a conventional form. The story is of the pre-emptive investigation of a cult. There is a suspense component --what in the heck is going on here. Still, the meat of the book focuses on the transformation of Ann Waverley/Anna Wakefield under the heat of undercover investigation.
The writing is, at times, brilliant and at other times, too wordy and redundant. The overall tone is dull and bleak. The ending left me breathing a sigh of relief (that it was over) on one hand and also really wondering what happened to the characters.
Rating:
Summary: A bit of a disappointment.
Review: 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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Rating: 
Summary: The End
Review: Laurie King is just about my favorite writer and I love the Mary/Sherlock books (I've never read the Kate Martinelli series), but this is the third book I've read in the last couple months with much the same ending. I hope this is not a trend. It could get very monotonous. It's more of a non ending.
Rating:
Summary: Very Engrossing
Review: Laurie R. King brings us a terrifying & interesting tale of good versus evil.
Ann Waverly is a Duncan Point University Professor & an occasional undercover FBI assistant. Ann first worked with the FBI when her 7 year old daughter Abbie & her 31 year old husband Aaron was part of a mass suicide in Northern TX, with a group called Ezekiel's Farm. Ann was also part of the cult, at one time, but, was going threw some changes in her life so she decided to go away and think about her life. When she finally returned Ann found her husband and child dead. That is how she met Glen McCarthy. Now Glen has called upon Ann to help out the FBI again. The group, Ann was to enter into undercover was an Arizona Branch called, Change. Within a month of it's founding, the group started a school for troubled youth. No official complaints were made, but some social workers had noticed that on their visits the older children were subdued. Steven Chance, one of the founders of the group had a background in chemistry, so the FBI thought that a small religious group led by a man who could construct a bomb needed to be under observation. Ann becomes a member of the group to find out what they are really about.
We go through the good and bad with Ann to the final ending that will leave you breathless. A very engrossing novel that will keep you spellbound all the way to the last word in the book. I consider it a good read.
Pam Stone
Rating: 
Summary: Superlative!
Review: I truly enjoyed this book. This was my entry into the world of Laurie King, and I could not have been more pleased. As a result of this book I ordered the entire series of Kate Martinelli and Mary Russell books. It is my hope that Laurie will proceed with more books that follow the vein of "A Darker Place". It remains my favorite of her works.
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly good
Review: I picked this novel up at a discount store on my way to jury duty last week. I hadn't read the author before, but took a chance. I loved it. Frankly, there could have been more character development of some of the minor charactors, but they were just that, minor charactors. The abrupt ending left me wanting more, but I understand this is a serial author, and hopefully we'll see more! I've now gone out and picked up "The Beekeeper's Apprentice" and started it - I can't put it down!
Rating: 
Summary: Weak supporting characters
Review: One of my disappointments with this book is the weak supporting characters. Ana is obviously brilliant and I was ready to learn much about religion and cults. I carefully read the excerpts from her "lectures.". But the other members of the cult never had anything vaguely intelligent to say. Are we to assume they are sheep, or is it just that they are not important to the plot so we don't need to form an impression of them? If Ana was really much smarter than other Change members, then wouldn't she have aroused suspicion from the leaders? If she was typical, why didn't she have in-depth conversations with anyone else?
Rating: 
Summary: I am in a darker place.
Review: A friend gave me this book as a gift. I started to read it last night. I fully agree with the reviewers who hated it. It has no plot. The woman, Ana, is most annoying. I thought if I read about her long, going gray hair, one more time I would scream. I actually thought my book was missing pages when I came to the end. I re read the last chapter to see if I had skipped the ending. I will put Ms King on my don't buy list for the future.
Rating:
Summary: A Darker Place is right...
Review: I have read every book by this author and enjoyed them all, with a particular affinity for the Mary Russell series. This book insulted me. There were 100 pages or more of setting up the characters, mostly unnecessary. We knew as little about character motivation by the time the book really started in chapter 8 as we did on page 1. I think the author had worked so hard thinking it all up, she couldn't bear to tighten up the story by dropping enough of the blather to help us love her characters.
I dislike books that try to impress with wordiness--did Anne really "fossick" through papers on page 53 and does anyone even know what that means or care? I love intelligent mysteries, but the mystery was sacrificed in this one for too much intellect.
I hung on for dear life, hoping for good things to come, and the book did get better, keeping me turning pages instead of tossing it away. Then came that terrible ending. What happened to Stephen, why was it necessary to have separate locations for this cult that seemed so unconnected, was greed the motivation or the desire for transcendence, if the latter, to what were they transcending? Why include references to coming events and then never speak of them again? And what happened at the end? It just ended with no satisfying conclusion. After all those unnecessary words at the beginning, surely the author could have spared a few for the ending.
Anne was a great character in a very bad story. I was so disappointed, I am writing my first ever review to rid myself of the lingering bad aftertaste.
