The Colony: Faith And Blood In A Promised Land

A Publishers Weekly Summer Reads Selectionthe Colony Is One Of The Most Gripping And Disturbing True Stories Ive Ever Come Across. Douglas Prestonan Investigation Into The November, 2019 Killings Of Nine Women And Children In Northern Mexicoan Event That Drew International Attentionthe Colony Examines The Strange, Littleunderstood World Of A Polygamist Mormon Outpost.On The Morning Of November 4, 2019, An Unassuming Caravan Of Women And Children Was Ambushed By Masked Gunmen On A Desolate Stretch Of Road In Northern Mexico Controlled By The Sinaloa Drug Cartel. Firing Semiautomatic Weapons, The Attackers Killed Nine People And Gravely Injured Five More. The Victims Were Members Of The Lebaron And La Mora Communitiesfundamentalist Mormons Whose Forebears Broke From The Lds Church And Settled In Mexico When Their Religion Outlawed Polygamy In The Late Nineteenth Century. The Massacre Produced International Headlines For Weeks, And Prompted President Donald Trump To Threaten To Send In The Us Army.In The Colony, Bestselling Investigative Journalist Sally Denton Picks Up Where The Initial, Incomplete Reporting On The Attacks Ended, And Delves Into The Complex Story Of The Lebaron Clan. Their Homesteadcolonia Lebaronis A Portal Into The Past, A Place That Offers A Glimpse Of Life Within A Polygamous Community On An Arid And Dangerous Frontier In The Mid1800S, Though With Smartphones And Machine Guns. Rooting Her Narrative In Written Sources As Well As Interviews With Anonymous Women From Lebaron Itself, Denton Unfolds An Epic, Disturbing Tale That Spans The First Polygamist Emigrations To Mexico Through The Lebarons Internal Blood Feud In The 1970Sstarted By Ervil Lebaron, Known As The Mormon Mansonand Up To The Familys Recent Alliance With The Nxivm Sex Cult, Whose Nowimprisoned Leader, Keith Raniere, May Have Based His Practices On The Society He Witnessed In Colonia Lebaron.The Lebarons Tense But Peaceful Interactions With Sinaloa Deteriorated In The Years Leading Up To The Ambush. Lebaron Patriarchs Believed They Were Deliberately Targeted By The Cartel. Others Suspected That Local Farmers Had Carried Out The Attacks In Response To The Lebarons Seizure Of Water Rights For Their Massive Pecan Orchards. As Denton Approaches Answers To Who Committed The Murders, And Why, The Colony Transforms Into Something More Than A Crime Story. A Descendant Of Polygamist Mormons Herself, Denton Explores What Drove So Many Women Over Generations To Join Or Remain In A Community Based On Male Supremacy And Female Servitude. Then And Now, These Women Of Zion Found Themselves In An Isolated Desert, Navigating The Oftenmysterious Complications Of Plural Marriageand Supported, Denton Shows, Only By One Another.A Mesmerizing Feat Of Investigative Journalism, The Colony Doubles As An Unforgettable Account Of Sisterhood That Can Flourish In Polygamist Communities, Against The Odds. 23 Blackandwhite Images