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.

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.

Lia Matera has put together a remarkable anthology that has several excellent stories, some very good tales, and no poor entry. The cross-genre contributors are a modern day who's who with such noted authors like Oates, Cross, Deaver, Lutz, Buchanan, and Muller, etc. None of the writers are lightweights as they all hold their own with the heavyweights. Anyone who enjoyed the Battle of the Roses will fully relish each tale that paints a very dismal look at broken relationships.

Harriet Klausner

Much of this book focuses on Kate's personal life crises - Lee has left to recover with a long lost aunt and Kate doesn't know where she stands. She spends more and more time with Jules, the soon to be step-daughter of her partner, Al Hawkin. (Readers of the previous books will remember the child genius.) She spends some of the time tracking down a runaway friend of Jules. In the second half of the book, Jules disappears during a road trip to Seattle. Still, Kate isn't allowed to participate in the the active search and acts policelike only on the fringes.

Bottom-line: Probably a worthwhile read for existing fans of the series but wouldn't be the best book for starting the Martinelli series (which is terrific overall).

Sensitive, intense, and at times absolutely gut-wrenching, this book, the third in the Detective Kate Martinelli series, is my favorite to date. Even more so than in the previous two books in the series, Kate emerges as a strong, complex woman who is now fighting to reclaim herself after her life partner leaves to spend some time alone. Just as Kate gets her feet back underneath herself, the special bond she has been forming with Jules, a smarter-than average twelve year old, is threatened when Jules disappears while in Kate's care. The ensuing search is surrounded by accusations and strong emotions, climaxing in a thrilling rescue attempt. I encourage fans of King's Mary Russell books to check out her present-day heroine, as well.

Just a small warning--make sure you have plenty of time to read when you begin any of King's books--they are impossible to put down!

The two books preceding "With Child" in this series are "A Grave Talent" and "To Play the Fool," both excellent reads.

One supposes, after reading (and rereading) this superb example of a mystery, that Laurie R. King would be just as formidable an academic as mystery novelist. Her scholarship is profoundly relevant, accurate, and, most impressively, INTERESTING. This is a book that pities neither wise man nor fool, whether the fool be wooden-headed or more delicately balanced, as in King's story.

This book, second in the "Kate Martinelli" series of mysteries by Laurie R. King, presents the reader with two challenges: the complexity of the narrative and the complexity of the intellectual challenges in the narrative. I admire King's risk-taking with this novel; she neither condescends to nor makes allowance for any laziness on the part of the reader. Simply put, you'll either make the effort to keep up with her, or just bobble along in the wake of her prodigious imagination, wishing you spoke Latin and weren't so lazy. Either action is rewarding.

As in "A Grave Talent", King establishes characters as the driving force behind her narrative. Her protagonists return, slightly more careworn in the intervening time but just as fiesty, and she introduces new characters of towering believability. Anyone who has spent any time aimlessly wandering the streets of San Francisco has encountered the street denizens she describes.

Brother Erasmus, on the other lapel...Brother Erasmus is a quintessential distillation of what we might hope to be, but are gladly not. Tormented, suffering both spiritual and emotional turbulence, fallen from grace in the classical manner, undeniably brilliant in the same way as the actinic flash of magnesium underwater.

With characters such as Erasmus, a narrative writes itself. Or so it's convenient to believe. In reality, King must have worked extraordinarily hard on this narrative, to judge by the esoteric depth of her data. And still, even in the labors she goes through to present her story, it reads effortlessly.

"To Play The Fool" surpasses "A Grave Talent" simply by dint of possessing one of the most memorable characters in recent mystery (Erasmus), and, for that reason, I evaluate it as a four-and-a-half star novel. Very nearly but not entirely an example of perfection in its genre.

I recommend this book wholeheartedly, and believe that it reads best in small coffeeshops in San Francisco.

And I still envy the house.

Thanks for reading,

Ashton

And after all that agony and suspense, the ending was NOT GRATIFYING. It didn't fulfill my worst fears, nor my fondest hopes. It was, in fact, a bit on the lukewarm side, which was quite surprising since the book absolutely sizzled until the very last paragraph! Laurie, wherever you are, I would have given a lot for an "afterword" telling us what happened to Anne and the kids! (And I'd love to read a sequel!)

Anne Waverly is a very believable character to me, at 43, and a long time member of one of those "odd" cults. (I am of the Wicca.) I found her outsider's view very consistent with that of many others I have known that have tried to understand WHY I am what I am.

It has to do with emotions, the physical alchemy is supposed to be allegorical, but I know many hollow people who cannot handle the multi-tiered reality we work with and therefore desperately try to find a physical manifestation that will fill the need they have.

The criticism of the ending of the book surprised me. Whether Anne survives or not is not germane to the needs that drove her there and the resolution she obtained. The end is implicit in the beginning. I won't spoil it, but that IS the ending of that part of her story. Anything else that may happen will be another woman, another story.

Honestly, I hope Laurie revisits her. How she changes and does would be a very interesting story.

The protagonist, Rae Newborn, is a fascinating character, and her struggles with mental illness well developed. However, the villans of the piece seem to be fathers. Rae's grandfather, her father, her son-in-law (father of her granddaughter), Rae's first husband, and the abusive fathers of the "vanished" children are the demons whose influence causes pain, death, and misery. Although Rae's second husband (Alan) is supposed to be a "good" father, he is unable to "fill the black hole" in his son by a former marriage.

The subplots and sub-subplots complicate the book and leave the reader with some confusion. What happens between Jerry and Nikki (the sheriff and the park ranger)? What about Jerry's brother, Allen? And the disappearing (vanished) children who are victims of their fathers' abuse?

The book is worth reading, and some parts of it are lyrical and lovely. However, it is surely not King's best work and not nearly so much a psychological thriller as a study of being, literally and figurately, "new-born" after depression and trauma.

Other reviews have outlined the plot of "Folly." I disagree with those that feel the plot was overburdened or that not enough issues were resolved by the end of the book. There are unresolved stories continuing every day in all of our lives. I feel comfortable knowing that the relationships that were not resolved in the pages of "Folly" are still out there continuing to a conclusion. The characters are real enough to let you do that.

I was not disappointed when I finally got my hands on the book and enjoyed entering the life of Rae and wondering with her whether she was still in the grasp of mental illness or whether there were people watching and there was danger lurking somewhere behind her. I can't really compare "Folly" directly with other King publications. Again she provides us with a new approach to story telling for her. The mystery is there just as in her other books -- but the presentation is different.

My only regret was that I didn't control my urge to read the book until I went on vacation. I longed for a good book to read in peaceful surroundings. This book is worth a read -- as are all of King's previous works. If you haven't read the Mary Russell series ( a totally different experience) you should.

On the other hand, the plot here could be stronger. At times, the case seems to take a back seat to Miss Russell's personal life. Character development is good to an extent, but a mystery plot should never play second fiddle to the detective's emotions. Further, in one engaging part of the story, Margery (one of the main characters) appears to have been the victim of some physical violence under rather mysterious circumstances. The next morning, however, all signs of injury seem to be gone. This opens up some interesting possibilities in the plot and much is made of it. Subsequently, though, this apparently miraculous recovery has little bearing on events. Nor is it ever satisfactorily explained.

Finally, if you are a fan of Sherlock Holmes, this isn't him. This Holmes is usually a step late and he is ruled by his passions to a degree that Arthur Conan Doyle would not have recognized.

In short, this is a nice period piece, but only a so-so mystery and only a pale shadow of a Holmes story. Much of it is spent dealing with emotions, and feminist concerns of that era are never far below the surface. In general, women will like this book much more than men will. I found it a mediocre effort.

In this second outing, Mary Russell is writing her thesis at Oxford, while eagerly anticipating the day she will turn 21, come into her inheritance, and rid herself of her horrible aunt and other assorted hangers-on. She happens to run into a friend of hers from her early days at Oxford. Veronica has given up the life of wealthy, pampered lady, and now works for an organization dedicated to helping the underprivileged women of London. Strangely, wealthy members of this group have been dying under mysterious circumstances, leaving money to this group. This, of course, piques Russell's interest, and she investigates the group, its leader, and the deaths.

The middle portion of this book is largely given over to study of the feminist leader of the group. She is both a feminist, and an untrained theologian. She gives public sermons that mainly center around the meaning of "love" and the unequal power balance between men and women. To be completely honest, I found a good portion of these sermons to be tedious and a bit muddled. Although I understand Russell's interest, since she is studying theology at Oxford, these meandering sermons and instruction periods really did nothing to advance the plot.

But persistence has its rewards. In the final quarter of the book, attention is returned to the mystery at hand, and it becomes a 5-star book again. Russell gets to do a wonderful bit of undercover work, aided by Holmes' training in the art of disguise. If only the middle had been as good as the beginning and end, the whole would have earned another 5-star rating. As it is, a solid 4 stars.

This is a story rich with history, imagery and wonderful characters you really care about. Set in the Holy Land, the historical references meld neatly with Holmes' and Russell's present. Ancient history and post-WWI history is anything but dull as King paints a picture both realistic and captivating.

Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell are, as always, strong characters, but the other central characters are well rounded and real as well. I came to care about them and hated to come to the end of this novel. I hope that we'll meet up with Ali and Mahmoud, the odd detecting duos reluctant cohorts, again soon.

If you're uncertain about whether or not to buy this novel, don't be. Buy it now and feel the heat of the ancient desert between your toes. :o)

I simply loved the way Laurie R. King (and because of this, Russell) really and truly understood and recognized these people as who they are and what they are, not trying to hide or disguise it at all. It is refreshing, truly.

This fine piece of work was wrought well by the master story-teller Laurie R. King, and is sure to delight you. Just as Russell had to show she was competent to Holmes, so she does now once again, this time to two Arab males that believe women to be inferior to everything else in the world, especially them. It is comic yet heart-wrenching, serious yet light. A hard thing to explain, true...but if you read the book, you will understand.

I liked this book about Kate Martinelli, a San Francisco cop with a penchant for getting in over her head.

I probably would have liked it more, however, if I had done what I advise my readers to do: read the series in the order they are published. I would be more familiar with Kate and Lee and the life they're trying to make for each other.

A lot of the author's time and ink are spent on internal issues like relationships; family; theology; and there is a more than occasional feminist theme in her work.

Spousal abuse and the overall degredation of women are this story's themes, and it sometimes seems the author feels obliged to club her reader over the head time and again with how UNempowered (is there such a word?) women still are.

I'll probably read more Kate Martinelli books...I'll just go back to the beginning and play catch up first.

Enjoy!

The exploration of Indian marriage, caste and gender oppressive traditions, seen through a family which Lives in San Francisco and arranges a marriage for an undesirable brother to a "mail order" peasant girl from India, is timely and well done.

The characterization of the complicated personalities and combinations of the "regulars" relies a little too heavily on the past Martinelli novels. I would have liked more dynamic interaction within and between the complex individuals, relationship formations and clusters. They were a little flatter than before. All in all, a great read.

This was the last book I read for a Women's Studies class entitled Murder Mysteries, and the second by Laurie King. The class focused on gender and violence, and I think this book was a fitting end to the class because it focuses on crimes that are specifically gendered, namely rape and wife battering. The book poses a number of hard questions for those of us readers who consider ourselves opposed to violence. First, when, if ever, is violence acceptable? What kind of violence? Perpetrated by whom, and for what reasons? Violence against women is clearly unacceptable, but is violence against those who are violent acceptable? I am 100% opposed to capital punishment and other forms of violence, but I found myself unwittingly tolerating, and almost agreeing with, the vigilante type murders of violent men who escaped the criminal justice system. When I realized this, I was shocked at myself.

I found the use of Kali and indeed the idea of Kali herself fascinating. First, King's use of Kali creates a somewhat mystical, mysteriouis atmosphere to the book, which I found very effective. From reading the Introduction, in which Kali is described, we know that she must have something to do with the novel, but we are not sure what, until the very end of the book. King keeps us guessing, with a quote from "The Invocation to Kali" at the beginning of every chapter. We know that there must be some connection between Kali and the murders, but we are never sure exactly what it is. I was captivated by this book because I wanted to know the truth about the murders, and what Kali had to do with it all. I had a hard time putting the book down, fascinated by this aspect of it.

This book had a profound effect on me. At one point, Kate reluctantly realizes that there is an energy force present in all of us-a force of both destruction and creation. Perhaps that explains why I did not disagree with the violence in this book. Though, once revealed, the symbolism of Kali seems somewhat heavy-handed, it made me question myself, and the nature of violence overall.