A Darker Place

A Darker Place by Laurie R. King

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I didn't like this as much as the other books by Laurie King. The premise wasn't as interesting and there were long periods of soul searching by the main character that I found to be very boring. Still, it did have some very interesting twists and turns and was worth reading. King is just such a good author, I think I was expecting too much.

The story is about Professor Anne Waverley, a university religion teacher and expert at infiltrating cults for the FBI. As a young woman, she and her husband and small daughter were in a cult and when she left for some soul searching, all the members committed suicide leaving her with tremendous guilt that has been somewhat assuaged by working with the FBI. She adopts a different persona and infilterates the cult giving the FBI information that helps to establish if the cult is dangerous or not.

Several times throughout the book there are exerpts from books or lectres she has written for the FBI for their training in understanding cults. To me this was the most interesting part of the book. There was a fascinating discussion as to what makes a cult leader explode with violence and what are the danger signals. She also talks about the difference between a small break-away religious group and what we know of as a cult.


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