This extraordinary work of investigative journalism takes readers inside America’s isolated Mormon Fundamentalist communities, where some 40,000 people still practice polygamy. Defying both civil specialists and the Mormon establishment in Sodium Lake City, the renegade market leaders of the Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God.

At the core of Krakauer’s reserve are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who demand they received a commandment from God to destroy a blameless girl and her baby girl. You start with a meticulously investigated account of the appalling dual murder, Krakauer constructs a multi-layered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage assault, and unyielding trust. On the way he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest developing religion, and increases provocative queries about the type of religious belief.