Polygamy can be murder! That’s what private detective Lena Jones learns when she helps thirteen-year-old Rebecca escape from Purity, a polygamy compound hidden in a desolate area straddling the Utah/Arizona border. When Rebecca’s mother is arrested for the murder of Prophet Solomon Royal, Rebecca’s intended husband, Lena enters Purity masquerading as a polygamist wife to uncover the real murderer. In doing so, Lena finds out more than she bargained for – the shocking secret the cult’s Circle of Elders will kill to keep.
This book is scary in more ways than one. Betty Webb paints a horrific picture of the bleak future that awaits the young girls condemned to live in the claustrophobic world of polygamist societies. They are brainwashed, refused education, married off when they reach puberty, kept in an almost perpetual state of pregnancy, and every minute of their waking lives are devoted to serving their husbands (and yes, sadly, it is all true as the Author’s Note at the end of the book reveals). Yet, unlikely as it may sound, this book is full of spiky and sassy humour. In Lena Jones, Betty Webb has created a character who is tough, tenacious, principled but very, very engaging. You’d want to go down to the pub for a drink with her and would certainly want her on your side in a fight.
Despite the skin-crawling things I learnt about polygamy, I really enjoyed this book. I could feel the sun beating down and taste the dryness of the desert air. The murder mystery is complex and involving and the secret at the heart of it all genuinely shocking. This is the second in the series of Lena Jones Mysteries and I hope there’ll be more to come.
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Ruth Wade