This is one of three nonfiction books that I have read in the last month that didn't quite live up to my expectations. Some things that the author set out to achieve were done well but others either missed the mark or have been done better elsewhere.

For starters, readers looking for an in-depth investigation into the murders of eight women and children that took place in northern Mexico in November 2019 will likely be disappointed. The first and last chapters deal with this subject as comprehensively as is possible considering the limits that the situation imposes, but it still doesn't provide any concrete proof as to who commit these heinous crimes. In the end, I was left with even more possible culprits than I considered before I picked up the book.

As a descendent of polygamous Mormon families, [author:Sally Denton|100283] is well-equipped to provide a good summary of the foundation and history of the church founded by Joseph Smith and led for decades by Brigham Young. She pulls no punches, describing how church missionaries recruited European women into the church, denying forcefully the rumors that polygamy was one of their key tenets until they were in Utah with little chance of escape. Denton also didn't shy away from describing the events of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, when church members, likely on Young's orders, disguised themselves as Paiute Indians and slaughtered an entire wagon train of California-bound settlers, and its aftermath, when Young betrayed many of his trusted lieutenants and either aided the government in its prosecution of the killers or quietly arranged a more permanent means of insuring their silence. To this day, most church members that I have talked to know little to nothing about these events, even though they are a well documented part of the public record.

Brigham Young's betrayal of the Mountain Meadows participants and the subsequent revelation to church prophet Wilford Woodruff that God wanted them to end plural marriage, that prompted a schism in the church that saw may hardline polygamists leave the church and try to create their on promised land. Some of these went to Mexico. Even though the history of these LDS offshoots is convoluted and extremely bloody, this story, too, is one that Denton was able to tell well, with her innate empathy for the plight of women trapped in a subservient role from which few could escape.

Denton's skillset fails her when it comes to describing the history of the Mexican cartels. This, too, is a convoluted and very bloody story and many great journalists have paid with their lives for their attempts to tell it. Even so, there are books and articles out there that can give one a better understanding of the subject than Denton was able to do.

Bottom line: Denton did a good job of describing the history of the LDS church and of the groups that split off from it after it rejected polygamy. For those reasons, this book is worthwhile, and I appreciate the effort that went into writing it. ( )