For what did I know?

“As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane-as a means of inciting evil, to borrow the vocabulary of the devout-there may be no more potent force than religion.”

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith is about the true life murders of Brenda Lafferty and her 15-month daughter Erica at the hands of her brother-in-law who is in the clutches of a fundamental mormon sect, or at least that is what it is supposed to be about. Under the Banner of Heaven focused more on the background the Mormon religion and the events that led up to the fundamentalists splitting off. There was about one chapter regarding the Lafferty’s for every three chapters dealing with old-school Mormonism.

Since I was hoping to read a true-crime story, and not another book about the evils of Fundamentalism and how it began, I was disappointed with this book. If you are interested in reading about the early-days of Mormonism, this book would be a good place to start. It is well written and researched. The complicated events are explained with just enough detail so as not to be too vague nor too confusing.