well done...weird church and weirder women! ( )

Truth is stranger than fiction. It is hard to believe that a morbidly obese pastor could charm so many women. He must have been very persuasive and manipulative. Not too mention, they were very sympathetic to him since his wife had recently died. I enjoyed this book. ( )

Review: A Twisted Faith by Gregg Olsen.

The book is based on a true story. A murder in 1997of a young women. She was just starting out happily married to a young Youth Pastor in a small town called Bremerton in Washington State.

The author brings alive a wide cast of characters in a closely knitted community all headed for contributing to a tragedy driven by their faith. Not just the faith of their church but the obsession of one leader. At first I thought it was going to be another cult story but the happenings turned into something more selfish, deceitful, and sinister. The story slowly implied a tale of innocence and moved on to perverted manipulation preyed upon faithful church members and then destroyed the lives of many by the vilest of mortal sins. His sins, sexual obsession, using one women after another. He mastered keeping them to himself without each others knowledge.

It baffles me that when the rumors stared coming out of his sexual desires some labeled it, “sex addition”, wanted to help him and forgave him… Ok, I can acknowledge there is a medical term as ‘sexual addiction”, but give me a break, the world is not all sexually addicted!!
( )

I love the way Gregg Olsen writes. This book was difficult to put down. It was difficult to see how the church members were brain washed with Nick's ideas of what "God told him". The only part that I was dissappointed with in this book, was the lack of detail about the trial. I would reccommend this book to and True Criime lover. ( )

Audiobook: There’s something salacious about true crime stories that always intrigues, yet the author’s reportage of intimate thoughts and conversations always makes me wonder just how accurate they can be. Some of the intimate details and verbatim conversations where only the perp and one other person are present tend to set off my crap detector. The scene where the victim’s mother goes out with Nick and then gives him a BJ had me wondering just who his source was for that little tidbit.

Certainly this was a fun book to listen to while mowing and doing summer chores. You don’t have to listen too carefully as the broad strokes provide more than enough to get the gist and individual conversations aren’t necessary to keep things moving.

Basically, this is the story of a deeply troubled church pastor, Nick Hacheney, in Bainbridge, WA, who began an affair with a parishioner, Sandy, known for her conversations with God and her predictions (from God) about what would happen in the smallest details of people’s lives.

It’s also a cautionary tale of how naive people can be in believing what they want to and attributing their actions (and wishes and desires and lusts) to God’s will. Frankly, any sensible person would have tuned out of this church when people started talking about how God had told them to buy a new car or jewelry even though they couldn’t afford it. Apparently the jump to murder wasn’t very long when you think God ordains it. Hacheney drugged and killed his wife, then set the house on fire to cover his tracks. Then he proceeded to screw (in the literal and figurative sense) what seems like half the women in the church (God’s will you know; he needed comforting and missed the physical touch of his wife.) Gullible and stupid doesn’t begin to describe it.

The original investigation into the fire was very sloppy. (God and his minions always get away with have to meet a lower standard.) I think the first part of the book could have been cut and the last part concerning the investigation expanded.

Hard to put down though. Sort of like watching a train wreck in slow motion. ( )