Laurie R. King: With Child

Laurie R. King

With Child

Christina says:

When Jules Cameron, the future step-daughter of her partner Al Hawkin, asks for her help, San Francisco homicide detective Kate Martinelli is glad for the distraction from her own problems. Jules is twelve, highly intelligent and a pain in the neck, but Kate likes the girl who was shaped by a difficult family situation and who doesn’t have an easy time growing up because of her brilliant mind. Now she made friends with a boy who is also an outsider. Dio is homeless and lives in a park near Jules’s apartment. When Jules can’t find him there she turns to Kate. Kate isn’t optimistic but looking for Dio is better than staring at the walls in her empty house while her partner Lee is away at her eccentric aunt’s place to recover from the severe injuries she sustained while helping with one of Kate’s cases. At first Kate only wants to do Al a favor, but then she befriends the coy girl. Hawkin and Jani Cameron leave Jules with Kate when they go on their honeymoon. Kate and Jules receive an invitation from Lee and drive north. Then one morning Jules isn’t in her motel room. And she fits the profile of the victims of a serial killer on the loose in the area.

In WITH CHILD Laurie R. King for the third time lets her readers glimpse into the life of her detective Kate Martinelli. Once more she has to deal with crime against children. King opens the world of juvenile homeless for us when she lets Kate look for Dio. The second case, much closer to home for Kate, also keeps you on edge until the end, although for my taste too many bad things occur in the lives of her protagonists. It’s like a soap opera where you ask yourself what will happen next to those poor people.

I recommend that you read this series in order. I hadn’t read the second book, TO PLAY THE FOOL, and since Martinelli’s private life plays an important part I was a bit confused now and then even if the mystery was self-contained and many things were explained in flashbacks.

With some reservations a book worth reading for friends of complex mystery novels that focus on more than just whodunnit.

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Christina Gross

Last changes: 02-09-03