Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

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.

• Prophet's Prey: My Seven-Year Investigation into Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints
• Into Thin Air
• Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town
• Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman
• Into the Wild
• Three Cups of Deceit
• Lost Boy
• The Leader's Daughter
• Breaking Free: How I Escaped Polygamy, the FLDS Cult, and My Father, Warren Jeffs
• Seventeen Sisters: Tell Their Story