A Darker Place

By: Laurie R. King

Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan

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.

©1999 Laurie R. King (P)1999 RECORDED BOOKS

If You Love The Mary Russell Books -

Any additional comments?

Give this one a miss. I bought it because I think the Laurie King does an amazing job with Holmes and Russell - and I am not one of those people who like 'literary sequels'. But those are really high quality. This just isn't. It's not awful - and the plot really sounds enticing and as though it should work - but it doesn't. It's over-written, drags, and the part set in England is really silly. Not least because it's been a really long time, like never, since the English police drove 'panda cars', wore tweed suits and called people 'lad'. The narration was very good; but this just isn't King's best effort. Draggy, almost deliberately un-tense, pretty silly rather cliched plot, and a central figure who becomes fairly tedious. Mary Russell would have wacked her in the head with a bat half way through. Or at least given her a Jolly Good Shake.

Best of LRK so far.

I couldn’t stop listening. 3am so tired I couldn’t understand the words so I went to sleep. Woke up and finished the book.
Literary devices that I teach my students were plentiful! Foreshadowing almost had me reading the end before I finished, had it been the print version I would have. Character development was wonderful. I felt the split and the transformation.
I’ve read all the Mary Russell novels-most more than once- I think I saw shades of this book in one of them.
On to the Martinelli series…

Enthralling!

I enjoyed this book . I will happily find and read any book by this author.

A Double Life

Would you listen to A Darker Place again? Why?

I just finished listening to this book for the second time. I'll listen again after a time.

What was one of the most memorable moments of A Darker Place?

When Ann meets a child with dark curly hair so like her own daughter, and Ann is lost to the task of saving the child from potential disaster.

Which scene was your favorite?

The seen when Ann literally spills the beans after hearing the scream of pig being slaughtered. It shows how much on edge Ann is in her situation and the horror of how pigs are killed.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Yes, I found it scary to delve deep into the minds and actions of the leaders of potential cults.

Any additional comments?

This is a most unusual story that takes the reader into a little known world of fanatical cults.

Atmosphere of a sad woman's mind

A well written story, though I found the end a little too abrupt.
Quite a dark atmosphere, mostly depicted via Anne/Ana's tragic past and her attempts, throughout the book, to work through this in the present with the two children she encounters in the Change community.
It's certainly an absorbing listen and well narrated too :)