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    A Darker Place
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    A Darker Place
    Unavailable
    A Darker Place
    Audiobook9 hours

    A Darker Place

    Written by Jack Higgins

    Narrated by Jonathan Oliver

    4/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    Betrayal. Conspiracy. Murder. Jack Higgins is back.

    Disillusioned with the Putin Government, famous Russian writer and ex-paratrooper Alexander Kurbsky decides he wants to disappear into the West. However he is under no illusions about how the news will be greeted at home – he has seen too many of his countrymen die mysteriously at the hands of the thuggish Russian security services, so he makes elaborate plans with Charles Ferguson, Sean Dillon and the rest of the group known informally as the ‘Prime Minister's private army’ for his escape and concealment.

    It's a real coup for the West…except for one thing. Kurbsky is still working for the Russians. The plan is to infiltrate British and American intelligence at the highest levels, and he has his own motivations for doing the most effective job possible. He does not care what he has to do or where he has to go…or whom he has to kill.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateNov 2, 2017
    ISBN9780008213930
    Unavailable
    A Darker Place
    Author

    Jack Higgins

    Jack Higgins lived in Belfast till the age of twelve. Leaving school at fifteen, he spent three years with the Royal Horse Guards, and was later a teacher and university lecturer. His thirty-sixth novel, The Eagle Has Landed (1975), turned him into an international bestselling author, and his novels have since sold over 250 million copies and been translated into sixty languages. Many have been made into successful films. He died in 2022, at his home in Jersey, surrounded by his family.

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    Reviews for A Darker Place

    4/5

    221 ratings20 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Sean Dillon did not kill anybody in this book. In fact, he was on holiday almost the entire time. Two new characters were introduced, both disenchanted Russian soldiers. It is not clear how big a part they will play in future works by this author. The story introduced a rather interesting plot line and it maintained the mystery for about three-quarters of the book and I liked it a lot. the background for the two new characters was painstakingly done with satisfying results. It seems that Higgins has traded bodies for story-line development.
    • 3/5
      A Darker Place is vintage Jack Higgins: renowned Russian writer and war hero Alexander Kurbsky decides to ‘vanish’ into the west so Sean Dillon and the group known as ‘The Prime Minister’s Private Army’ are called in to assist and protect him. The Iron Curtain may be down but Russia dislikes high placed defectors and tends to discourage them, fatally. However, all is not as it seems…Kurbsky is actually a lethally efficient spy, strategically positioned to win Western trust at the highest levels. Fortunately Sean, as usual, is on hand to save the day yet again in a series of derring-do adventures. Boys Own fun.
    • 3/5
      Slight better than the last instalment of the Sean Dillon saga but still nothing like Higgins earlier works.Overall, an average choice for something to fill in your time if you've got no better options.
    • 3/5
      The sixteenth episode in this series is as entertaining and exciting as its predecessors. The series may have become formulaic but it is a formula that works for me. The cutting between the story locations, flashbacks, and protagonists generates an energetic sense of pace.
    • 4/5
      Higgins can still keep me reading far into the night. Dillon, one of the main characters from earlier books, actually had only a small role in this one. Hopefully Alexander Kurbsky and his friend, Bounine, will appear in future books as part of the PM's 'private army'.
    • 4/5
      A Darker Place is considered to be a Sean Dillon novel, although he’s barely in the novel and does very little. Taking center stage in the novel is Alexander Kurbsky, a famed Russian novelist who was a former paratrooper in the Soviet and Russian armies. He defects from Russia with the help of Dillon’s team, except it’s all a setup by Vladimir Putin to crack the Prime Minister’s private army.Even though Dillon is largely irrelevant in the novel, there was a lot to like. Among them are the flow of the narration and ease of the writing style. It was a nice, clean read. Alexander Kurbsky is a compelling character. The plot was strong as the novel took on many twists and turns. Kurbsky is ostensibly the villain but he had enough valor and honor that there was always doubt when reading it that he would stay the villain, and ultimately the real villains were the Russians pulling the strings behind the scenes. I didn’t care much for the crazed Afghan that appears at the end of the novel and becomes a pivotal character even though he is introduced so late. By and large this novel worked for me and I would recommend it.Carl Alves – author of Battle of the Soul
    • 4/5
      Anne Waverly is a professor of religion who occasionally goes undercover for the FBI within communities suspected of developing into dangerous cults. Her background as a member of one such commune with a disastrous end makes her particularly useful; her guilt and grief over the deaths of her own husband and daughter at the hands of a zealot pushes her to continue accepting these assignments even once she has begun to settle into a new life of comparative emotional stability. The novel takes us with Anne as she assumes a new identity to investigate a group calling themselves Change, with a compound in the Arizona desert. Change seems to have nothing to hide; they comply with government regulations and educational standards for the children, welcome routine inspections by Children and Youth and other social welfare agencies, allow members to come and go with relative freedom, and operate a gift shop in the nearby town. The group also takes in, through appropriate channels, "troubled" youth whose needs the beaucratic system has so far failed. Nevertheless, Anne's FBI contact, Agent Glen McCarthy, has heard some disturbing reports about the group's other outposts, and needs an inside source of information. Glen and Anne have a "history" of their own, and it's not an especially healthy one. This novel has the feel of a Daphne DuMaurier story, although with the suspense rendered in a lower key. Not a true "gothic" story, but some of the elements are definitely there---a woman in unfamiliar surroundings trying to sort out what the secrets are, and whom to trust; charismatic men in authority; innocents in need of rescue; a slam-bam ending where the reader can't be certain of anything until the very last word.
    • 4/5
      Intriguing premie but not memorable.
    • 4/5
      Exciting, tense and a fascinating look into the workings of cults.
    • 4/5
      Not nearly as good as the Mary Russell series. I was really drawn into the protagonist's role in infiltrating a religious cult and was expecting a lot more out of the experience. I thought the book wrapped up too soon and too abruptly without resolution for the two children that Anne became attached to. Perhaps this opens the door to a series for Anne Waverly? I'd give it a chance if so.
    • 4/5
      A thoroughly engaging story.
    • 5/5
      Laurie R King has a gift for painting her characters in three dimensions so that the reader becomes totally immersed in the story.I found the book hard to put down and remained totally involved with the story right to the last page. This is a thriller which has an unpredictable ending which keeps the tension high and the reader guessing to the last paragraph.
    • 2/5
      An respected university professor, Anne Waverly is also an FBI operative wo goes undercover into a cult.
    • 4/5
      A strong potboiler from author Laurie R. King.A college professor who is an expert in 'cult' religious organizations and their operation, gets 'selected' by the FBI for undercover work in an Arizona based religious group. She has done this job before, sometimes not so successfully. Her own past is muddied with unresolved conflicts over events that took her family (husband and young daughter) from her. The assignment turns much more personal when the first person she meets in Arizona is a young girl that strongly resembles her own lost daughter! Can she separate the personal issues from the job she was sent to do?I found myself very engaged in the characters and the plot. What exactly makes a religious group a cult? What is just acceptable fervor and what crosses the line? I especially liked how the story took us inside the group, adding a human face to a subject too often publicly reported in glaring horrific headlines. These and other provoking questions are raised as the story moves forward. I hope the author plots another story with the same main characters.
    • 5/5
      I really liked this book. This is the first of Laurie King's work that I have read and I will look for more of her books. I enjoyed the subject matter, the conflict and the outcome.
    • 4/5
      This is the first Laurie King book I've read, and I have to say it was pretty impressive. It definitely showed me what it means to call something a 'literary thriller'. I finished it in just under two days -- quite a page-turner! The main character is a university professor who goes undercover in a cult, and the book is scattered with excerpts from her notes and presentations and publications. I found the Arizona section of the book far more convincing than the portion that takes place in England, though, and was somewhat disappointed by the final thirty pages or so. After such build-up, I wanted something explosive. And there was an explosion, but it seemed relatively tame. King left the ending open for a sequel, though, so hopefully if Professor Waverly ever returns her next adventure will end with a bigger bang.
    • 1/5
      What the heck is going on here.The protagonist seems to me to be bonkers.After struggling through about 90 pages of drivel I had to give it up as just not worth the effort.
    • 5/5
      Laurie King has a Master's Degree in theology from Union Theological Seminary; religion has been a life-long interest, not to say passion. The subject shows up in a number of her works, mainly the Mary Russell series, and in this, a stand-alone novel, although it makes an appearance in the Kate Martinelli series as well.The protagonist of A Darker Place is Anne Waverley, a middle-aged professor in an Oregon university. Anne's specialty--alternative religious movements--has involved her in FBI investigations of suspect religious communities, evaluating these for signs of incipient instability and potential degeneration into violence. Anne's background is one of horrendous loss of husband and daughter to such a scenario, and her work for the FBI is in part atonement for surviving--she had left the community to ponder whether to continue in it when the slaughter erupted.But she has come to a certain acceptance if not peace, and she is reluctant to become involved in this latest investigation. She does, however--and it becomes for her an emotional trap as well as a deadly dangerous mission. The result is an enthralling thriller with a hair-raising climax.What King does as well as tell a powerful story is to educate the reader on alternative religious communities. Nearly every chapter starts with either a page from one of Anne's lectures on the subject, either at the university or for an FBI seminar, and the fsascinating material adds immensely to the quality of the story. The title describes the theme of the book--a dark place into which the search for God and religious experience can lead.While I am a devoted fan of Laurie King's Mary Russell series, A Darker Place remains my favorite of her works. It is well-written, tightly plotted and infused with power.
    • 4/5
      This had more eroticism than I like, but I think it was necessary to the plot and story. Being a Laurie King novel, it was thought-provoking, instructional and very hard to put down. Good story, but not one I can recommend to my daughter or keep on my shelves.
    • 5/5
      Anne Waverly is a religion professor, liked and respected by her interested students. What they don't know is that she has another life, helping the FBI by infiltrating religious cults. After declaring that she won't take on any more assignments she is convinced to become Ana - and enter the Change cult.This the the second non-Mary Russell Laurie R. King book I've read this year. This was was a quieter thriller than the Kate Martinelli book, with the threat always hanging around, but not becoming huge and overwhelming until crucial moments. Anne Waverly is an interesting character, prickly but kind, able to suspend herself when she needs to take on a new persona. Her past informs her actions in an entirely 'logical' way.The other characters, from Glenn the FBI man, to Jason and Dulcie, the damaged children Ana befriends, are also interesting. One of Laurie R Kings greatest strengths is the richness of her language and this is no exception. An excellent read.