Under the Banner of Heaven

Rating:
Summary: Who is delusional?
Review: Krakauer likes to take unexplainable human actions and try to explain them, usually ending up saying they cannot be explained. He is such an excellent writer that his books read through as gripping adventure stories and the philosophy and psychology never hold the action up.
He cleverly puts a detailed account of the terrible Lafferty murders right at the beginning of the book, causing us to ask "why? why?" Then he backtracks 150 years and then digresses all over North America but keeps us reading hoping to get the answer.
I can understand the indignation of Mormon readers, because he looks for the reason for the murders in the Mormon religion, although he also targets religion in general.
My paperback copy, printed in June 2004 contains a refutation at the back by Richard E Tarley Jr, an LDS historian, with a response by Krakauer. I'd certainly say, even after reading Krakauer, that the places where I worry about walking alone after dark are not Mormon neighborhoods.
As regards mental illness, paranoid delusions and religious beliefs, he does a certain amount of re-inventing the wheel. These arguments about when the other guy's "weird" or "bizarre" religious beliefs are evidence of insanity have been gone over often in other places. One of the few pieces of research he left out is what medications Ron Lafferty was given in his 16 months in Utah State Hospital. Krakauer refers to antipsychotic medications. Did Ron Laffery accept these and did they change his beliefs?