Rating: 
Summary: At least as good as Folly
Review: Allen Carmichael was a second-tier character in Laurie King's delightful novel Folly, the story of internationally-renowned woodworker Rae Newborn's attempt to tighten her tenuous hold on reality by building a house on an uninhabited island in Washington State. In Keeping Watch, Allen's character and history are fully fleshed out, from the experiences in Vietnam that ineradicably imprinted themselves on him, to the mission he undertook after the War as a means of quelling his demons: Allen has spent more than 25 years applying his jungle survival skills to the task of rescuing abused children and wives from their abusers, usually by illicit means. When the action of Keeping Watch begins, Allen is in his mid-fifties and is about to retire from the field, but one final case requires his attention first: twelve-year-old Jamie O'Connell lives in terror of his father, whose casual abuse and cruel manipulations have warped the boy beyond measure.King's exploration of Allen's character is wholly successful, and her depiction of his patrols in the "green" in Vietnam riveting. The contemporary story of Jamie's rescue is equally rewarding, indeed downright engrossing after about page 240, when of a sudden one stops knowing for certain who the bad guys are. Keeping Watch is at least as good as King's novel Folly. Familiarity with the earlier book is not at all necessary, but readers of Keeping Watch will almost certainly want to treat themselves to a broader view of the universe Allen Carmichael inhabits once they've finished with King's latest.
Rating:
Summary: Blown away!
Review: I have always been a fan of both Laurie King's series, finding them complex and entertaining. This newest novel, Keeping Watch, is by far the best she has written. Allen Carmichael came back from a tour in Vietnam wounded in both body and soul in the late 60's when no one had ever heard of post-traumatic stress disorder to a country and family who had no idea what had happened to all the young men shipped off to a hellish, senseless war. Haunted by nightmares and flashbacks of both the things he had seen and had done, he sinks into several years of homeless wandering until he ends up back at his childhood home. In the care of his young brother Jerry, he begins to heal and seek his purpose in life. He finds it in rescuing children from the hands of abusive fathers and putting them into an underground network of families willing to foster them to adulthood. After 26 years he takes one final case before retiring to his beloved island home,that of rescuing 12 year old Jamie O'Connell from his monstrous father. Jamie both hates and loves his father, as many abused children do, but knows that his father will kill him eventually. When Jamie is safely placed in Montana, Allen thinks that he can peacefully retire until a plane registered to Jamie's father crashes,but no remains are found. There are many twists and turns before a final resolution to both Jamie's story and Allen's. This is an absolutely harrowing novel, but one that can't be put down. I was especially stunned by the considerable portions telling of Allen's Vietnam experience. Being of the Vietnam generation, I saw many of my friends be shipped off-some to return and some not. It amazes me that any of them came back sane. Laurie King's telling of Allen's story is a triumph of her imagination and narrative powers.
Rating:
Summary: children's advocacy - the underground movement
Review: I started out reading the Mary Russel novels of Laurie King and then progressed to Kate Matinelli. I read Keeping Watch before Justice Hall. This is new ground for the author but very fertile territory. It is hard to put a label on this book (i.e., mystery, fiction). It has substantive action and totally believable dialogue, no make believe like her other titles, which are very good. There is a craftsman-like leitmotif weaving of sub-plots and topics here, all obviously well-researched. King's titles all seem to have an accurate sense of history and geography and this is no exception. Its messages are real. It was eye-opening to me about children's advocacy issues and how victims repress and feel powerful emotions simultaneously. It was startling in its portrayal of the horrors of war (Vietnam). And it was powerful in depicting the depression of the protagonist and his struggle to achieve stability. It was moralistic, with good conquering evil.
The battle was never an easy one though and the author leads the reader to explore commitment, involvement, care and instruction of children, and loyalty to family and friends among other issues. Its relationships between men and women are on solid footing, too, as women are portrayed as role models in difficult situations. Not perfect types, but very human, with defined needs and depth of character who bring much to their associations. This is not just a good read. It is terrific. King won an Edgar Prize a few years ago for best mystery by a new writer. I don't know again if this qualifies as a mystery. If it does, it will compete for another Edgar as Best Mystery of the Year. Also, it makes King an attractive candidate for a Lifetime Achievement Edgar. She writes with the literacy of a Susan George. This book reminds me of Cold Mountain in many ways, too. It will compete for lots of awards. It is a serious novel by an author just finding her prime. I recommend it enthusiastically. I do caution readers that this book is candid about psychological hurt and physical pain. Not everyone will want to finish reading it.
Rating:
Summary: How does she do it?
Review: I'm a big fan of Laurie R. King's "Kate Martinelli" series; and bought this book to see what else she can write. I'd not read "Folly" (although I plan to) and I found that you can treat this book about sometimes-hero Allen Carmichael as a stand alone read. And what a read! King, through a series of writing and conversations, and, I believe, a voyage to the jungles (the "green") of Viet Nam, manages to evoke the presence of her ex-GI, Allen, and recreate the war there. Flashbacks syncopate the story of today's Allen, locked in a battle with an angry, violent father over possession of his abused, 12-year old son. Allen's part of a network of a type of "underground railroad" for abused children. His destiny is tied up in his memories of rage and terror from his days in Vietnam, and what's worse, his return to "civilization", as a despised Vietnam vet. King has gotten into the deepest visceral memories of the soldiers who served there, and the analogy between Allen's former battles and his current urban battles gives the reader a strong link to his motivation. "Six months of rage and shame flooded up through...his gut and seized his heart and his mind; six months of confusion and hatred and humiliation, long weeks of gut-shrinking terror and soul-withering frustrtion slammed together in the cleansing red emotion of savagery given a clear target". ....what terrors Allen has faced then and now are interspersed with the third/first person account of Jamie, a boy shattered by his sensitivity and knowledge of the emotional cripple that is his father. You'll be caught up in the tense thrill of today's story, and reluctantly moved back to the jungles to see the paradox of Jamie's struggles and Allen's own. A book you won't soon forget -- the evocative "Keeping Watch" - bravo for Laurie R. King!
Rating:
Summary: One of King's Best
Review: I've come to love Laurie King's literate, thoughtful and humanistic takes on mystery and suspense. KEEPING WATCH didn't let me down one bit. Fully realized characters, a suspenseful plot and remarkable writing all add up to a one great book. It's a wonderful read with a great payoff for the patient reader. I'm a believer - King can't write a bad book.
Rating:
Summary: One of King's Best
Review: I've come to love Laurie King's literate, thoughtful and humanistic takes on mystery and suspense. KEEPING WATCH didn't let me down one bit. Fully realized characters, a suspenseful plot and remarkable writing all add up to a one great book. It's a wonderful read with a great payoff for the patient reader. I'm a believer - King can't write a bad book.
Rating:
Summary: A REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENT
Review: KEEPING WATCH is a remarkable achievement. Laurie King intertwines a first-rate story of war in Vietnam with a contemporary suspense story about rescuing a twelve-year old from his abusive father. Both stories gain harmonic richness from their conjunction. This reader was utterly enmeshed in the complexity of thier gradual unfolding. Allen Carmichael returns from Vietnam haunted by terrible memories and nightmares. After seven years of wandering in a wilerness of alcohol, memory gaps, and petty crime he rurns home to Washinton's San Juan Islands to begin reconstructing himself. He spends the next two decades rescuing abused women and children for an underground network run by a woman named Alice. He has finally decided to retire and marry his lover, Rae Newborn (central figure of King's last novel FOLLY), but Alice persuades him to take one last case. It turns out to be the most challenging in his career, threatening the network and the lives of Allen and Jamie -- the boy he is trying to save. King has never written a book with a male protagonist before. The most vivd sections of the book are Carmichael's flashbacks of Vietnam. King credits "the stories" of Vietnam vets in helping her accomplish this feat. It is a measure of King's skill that those scenes have the flavor of first-hand observation. The suspense story has enough twists and turns to satisfy the most jaded mystery reader.
Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Well written but ultimately disappointing
Review: One of my favorite books of all time is Laurie King's first novel, A GRAVE TALENT. In a sense it is ironic that a supremely talented writer like Ms. King with many other distinguished books under her belt has not yet written a book to outdo her very first effort. With every book that she writes I hope for something to outdo the first effort. With the much heralded KEEPING TOUCH, I thought she might have finally done it. It sounded like she has written her true masterpiece at last. In fact, as I read the first hundred pages I thought that might finally be the case. However, she simply did not know how to keep her work down to a manageable length and unfortunately it does not live up to her first book.
Allen Carmichael has returned from Vietnam a psychological mess. It takes him quite some time to pull himself together. When the smoke clears he finds himself in a job in which he kidnaps children from abusive relationships and relocates them elsewhere in a safer and more supportive environment. Jamie is severely abused physically and mentally from his father. After removing him from the situation, Allen notes the father might be onto them thereby placing both Jamie and his foster family in danger. Allen must try to discover the truth about Jamie's father before it is too late.
A very promising start in this novel filled with harrowing scenes in Vietnam leads to a disappointing and trying conclusion. The novel goes on at least a hundred pages too long. All the strengths of Ms. King's work is here- the impeccably created characters, the riveting passages, the vivid descriptions of the locale and the intelligent subplots. However, the pacing lags and the length suffers as a result. A potential classic that simply could not maintain the high level consistently throughout.
Rating:
Summary: King's best book yet!
Review: Since there are already several glowing and wonderfully written reviews here, I will keep mine short and sweet. This is Laurie R. King's best book yet and that is saying a lot given the excellent caliber of her other work. Her descriptions of Vietnam affected me more than any others I have read and her presentation of a horribly abused boy is both restrained and heartbreaking. I do think the ending is wrapped up a little too neatly, but that is really nitpicking. You don't need to be a mystery buff to enjoy this book, just someone who enjoys a good read.
Rating:
Summary: ... a timely work
Review: This Laurie King book provides a great analogy of the Vietnam war and makes it clear why thirty years later it matters that Kerry served in Vietnam and Bush didn't. I understand (academically only, thank you Lord) that all war is hell, but Vietnam was, I think, a special brand of hell. I don't know as much about it, but I think in some ways it is more akin to the experience of World War I vets. It was simply constant hell with no clear end in sight. Add to that the Vietnam experience of unpredictability, or worse, the predictability of the unthinkable every time you entered the jungle, and you have a group of people forever changed.
Our boys, and they were mostly boys, spent a year or more in times of pure terror... much as do children of abuse. It marks them. It never leaves their experience. At some point, they choose to become the abuser themselves, to numb themselves in whatever way they can or to be something even greater than they would have been without the abuse. But the abuse is always there. It is a daily part of their experience. It is their history and part of who they are.
Our men and women came back from Vietnam to shame. I never made the connection personally of bad war equals bad soldiers, but my culture certainly did. My experience with Vietnam was an 18 year old boy who was lonely enough to write back and forth to a middle school aged girl.. who shockingly told of drinking beer with his buddys to a conservatively raised Southern Baptist, but who never spoke of the realities of his time in the bush, except to mention that he was coming out of it or going back into it. Until the day my letters began to come back to me, the final one with a date on it. I can still feel the 13 year old disbelief and denial. That couldn't mean what I thought it did.
Many soldiers (most) suffer from what we now call post traumatic stress disorder (as do most children of child abuse). It seems to have been worse for our Vietnam vets. Whether it is because of their unwelcoming homecoming or because of what they lived through can probably not be determined. I would say both. But we still have homeless Vietnam vets, Vietnam vets in prison and others who are more quietly destructive both to themselves and others. Because we as human beings cannot participate in such violence without being damaged. It is an important wisdom.
And if our soldiers came back with irreparable scars, what of the children of Vietnam. What of the children who grew up abused by war in a way that makes them almost unrecognizable as children... can't be trusted, not to bite.... What of the children of domestic abuse?
This is King's analogy. She weaves a story of a Vietnam vet who returns with memories no one should have, who cannot shed the role of soldier, who after years of self destruction finds a way to channel those jungle skills in the rescue of children from abusive situations. It is a dark and provocative book. It brings our soul back to a forgotten war and opens our eyes to a present one. It is art at its finest.
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