Crime Time: VIRTUAL Book Club: Under the Banner of Heaven

Can’t get enough of the true crime genre? Looking for something to do after binging shows like Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez, McMillions, and The Vow? Then join the Livingston Public Library for the brand new virtual book club, Crime Time. Crime Time is a true crime and crime adjacent book club where readers will explore everything from historical crime to unsolved mysteries.

For our June meeting we will be reading:  Under the Banner of Heaven: ​​A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer

Copies will be available at the main desk.  You can also check out the eBook title here.

Registration is required.  A Zoom link will be sent out the day before the program.

Summary:

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, 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 authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God.

At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a multi-layered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith. Along the way he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.