New Releases by Laurie R King

Acclaimed as one of the most original talents to emerge in the last decade, award-winning author Laurie R. King returns to Folly Island to deliver her most stunning achievement yet--a breathtaking novel of suspense that explores the very essence of good and evil. Allen Carmichael came back from Vietnam a lifetime ago--but only now was he ready to return home. For years, he’s lived on the fringes of the law, using a soldier’s skills to keep watch over those too young to defend themselves. Some consider him nothing but a kidnapper for hire--the best in the business; others call him a hero. His specialty has been rescuing children from abusive parents and escorting them to loving homes. But after twenty-five years, he is ready to take on his final case--a case that could destroy him. The boy’s name is Jamie: He believes his father is going to kill him. Allen is convinced that the twelve-year-old is right and devises a strategy to save him. His last job done, Allen heads back to Folly Island, where he plans to settle into a quiet life. But not long after his return, a small plane piloted by the boy’s father’s crashes, leaving behind debris--but no body. Now it is up to Allen to resolve whether Jamie’s father is dead or alive--and to make sure Jamie himself stays out of harm’s way. But a series of ominous events leads Allen to question whether Jamie’s father is really the enemy after all. Or if the real threat is far more unspeakable...and the killer unimaginable. Riveting, harrowing, and unforgettable, Keeping Watch takes psychological suspense to its most dizzying heights and proves again why Laurie R. King has been called by both readers and critics an undisputed master of suspense.

An acclaimed master of suspense creates a heroine you will never forget in this superbly chilling novel of a woman who begins a desperate undertaking that may transform her life--or end it. WHAT HAPPENS IF YOUR WORST FEARS AREN’T ALL IN YOUR MIND? Rae Newborn is a woman on the edge: on the edge of sanity, on the edge of tragedy, and now on the edge of the world. She has moved to an island at the far reaches of the continent to restore the house of an equally haunted figure, her mysterious great-uncle; but as her life begins to rebuild itself along with the house, his story starts to wrap around hers. Powerful forces are stirring, but Rae cannot see where her reality leaves off and his fate begins. Fifty-two years old, Rae must battle the feelings that have long tormented her--panic, melancholy, and a skin-crawling sense of watchers behind the trees. Before she came here, she believed that most of the things she feared existed only in her mind. And who can say, as disturbing incidents multiply, if any of the watchers on Folly Island might be real? Is Rae paranoid, as her family and the police believe, or is the threat real? Is the island alive with promise--or with dangers? With Folly, award-winning author LAURIE R. KING once again powerfully redefines psychological suspense on a sophisticated and harrowing new level, and proves why legions of readers and reviewers have named her a master of the genre.

It''s 1914, and a bold, young American called Mary Russell is about to experience a rather dynamic change of life. Deep in the rural English countryside, she meets a retired beekeeper by the name of Sherlock Holmes. Although many years have passed since he astonished Watson by solving Scotland Yard''s most baffling crimes, The Great Detective is still very much in possession of his excellent faculties.

First in Laurie King''s acclaimed Mary Russell crime series: '' Beguiling variation on Sherlock Holmes sequels...King''s novel is civilized, ingenious and engrossing. Best of all, it has heart'' -- Literary Review What would happen if typical Victorian man Sherlock Holmes came face to face with a twentieth-century female? And what if she grew to be a partner worthy of his legendary talents. In The Beekeeper''s Apprentice, Laurie King tells the story of Mary Russell, who in 1914 meets a retired beekeeper on the Sussex Downs. His name is Sherlock Holmes. Pompous, smug and misogynistic, the Great Detective can still spot a fellow intellect, even in a fifteen-year-old woman. At first he takes Mary on as his apprentice on small, local cases, gradually working up to larger investigations. All the time Mary is developing as a detective in her own right, but then the sky opens on them, and Holmes and Mary find themselves the targets of a slippery, murderous and apparently all-knowing adversary. Together they devise a plan to trap their enemy -- a plan that may save their lives, but may also kill their relationship...

After her last harrowing case, Kate Martinelli is more than ready for routine police work and her newfound serenity with longtime lover Lee. But then she''s called to the scene of a carefully executed murder, and everything changes.

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.

''Brilliantly written, intriguing and wholly absorbing'' T. J. Binyon, Evening Standard

Lesbian San Francisco homicide detective Kate Martinelli finds crime invading her own life as her lover asks for breathing space in their relationship and her partner''s young stepdaughter is kidnapped.

Winner of the Nero Wolfe Award It is 1921 and Mary Russell--Sherlock Holmes''s brilliant apprentice, now an Oxford graduate with a degree in theology--is on the verge of acquiring a sizable inheritance. Independent at last, with a passion for divinity and detective work, her most baffling mystery may now involve Holmes and the burgeoning of a deeper affection between herself and the retired detective. Russell''s attentions turn to the New Temple of God and its leader, Margery Childe, a charismatic suffragette and a mystic, whose draw on the young theology scholar is irresistible. But when four bluestockings from the Temple turn up dead shortly after changing their wills, could sins of a capital nature be afoot? Holmes and Russell investigate, as their partnership takes a surprising turn in A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King.

Chance meeting with a Sussex beekeeper turns into a pivotal, personal transformation when fifteen-year-old Mary Russell discovers that the beekeeper is the reclusive, retired detective Sherlock Holmes, who soon takes on the role of mentor and teacher.