Introduction

When rebellious Utah socialite Kirsten Young is found murdered in Provo Canyon with strange markings carved into her flesh and a note written in a 19th Century code, questions arise about the old laws of the Mormon Church. Journalist Selonnah Zee is assigned the story?which quickly takes on a life of its own. Even before the first murder is solved several more victims appear, each one more mysterious than the last.

Adding to a slew of other distractions, Selonnah's cousin, Roger, has recently converted and is now a public spokesperson for the Mormon faith. But paradoxically, Roger's wife Eliza is struggling to hold onto the Mormon beliefs of her childhood. If something is really from God, she wonders, why does it need to be constantly revised? And could the murderer be asking the same questions?
 

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Excerpt

THERE ON THE DAMP pine needles, Kirsten Young
lay on her back, a serene Ophelia in her dusky pond of blood.
The dark irises of her bloodshot eyes stared unseeing into the
branches above her. The sun had burst through the clouds
after the sudden downpour and now blazed above the
canopy of conifers and aspens in Provo Canyon. Deep in its
recesses, the light filtered down in vertical sheets of champagne
dust that played across the body.
Her skin, once the faintest of olive, now was pale as
churned cream, mottled in the dark pooling of what everyone
called her hot Italian blood. An angry oval bruise, dark as a
plum, marked the side of her forehead.
The slit in her throat cut deep. Her left arm lay loosely at
her side, still bearing at the wrist the friction marks from the
plastic rope that had bound her. Her right arm crossed her
chest, with the elbow supported by a rock underneath the
triceps so the arm stayed in place. Her fingers curled slightly
CHAPTER 1
around her own shoulder, as if she gave herself a final hug in
death. The tip of her thumb touched, delicately, the edge of
the open wound under her left ear.
The scene on the forest floor was meant to set things
aright.
No, no, she wasn’t Ophelia at all, he thought. She was
Eve, temptress and sinner cast from the garden of Utah, wearing
a hasty apron of cottonwood leaves heaped around and
across her plump belly, from just below the navel to midthigh.
Tiny rivulets of blood snaked down through the leaves.
The other four wounds, the little ones, were postmortem,
made after she’d already bled out.
On the right side of her chest, incised with surgical precision,
the first cut penetrated deep, a backward L. It depicted
a carpenter’s square: the straightedge, true-maker, indispensable
for right angles. The desired angularity could not, alas,
be achieved on the soft roundness of this still-warm flesh.
Nor could the second, the compass. On the left side, a
chevron gaped open with edges that wanted to lose their defi -
nition, a tiny V on this day of defeats and victories.
A third inch-long slit carefully cut into the muscle just
above the knee that would never again bow.
A final slit traversed her stomach just above the navel, a
sign of nourishment for a body that would never again eat;
of health for one who would only decay.
They were all symbols only the initiated would understand.
But below her navel mark, Kirsten harbored her own tiny
secret, one that held the seed of her killer’s downfall, her own
unwitting fleshly vengeance.
In the sheeting light, her murderer stood above her like
the angel guarding Eden, the knife-sword flashing this way
and that in his gloved hand. He had brought along a plain
white sheet he’d bought at a garage sale and kept stored in a
plastic bag. But he changed his mind about putting it over
her. She was beyond the veil now.
His shoulders sagged beneath the once-white jumpsuit.
The leaves embroidered on the green cloth apron he wore
were speckled as a measles plant. The X-Acto knife lay at his
feet and he picked it up and threw it and the sheet into the
stream. Then he laid the note carefully on the ground, its
edge secured by a rock.
The white cap still contained his close-cropped hair but
it had lost its starched definition. It, too, sagged as he backed
away from Kirsten, brushing over with a fallen pine branch
the near-invisible footprints they both had made when they
came to this, his sacred grove.
His breathing was heavy as he recited. They’d said it was
“the pure Adamic language” he’d learned that first time, at
age nineteen, scared half to death by all the temple vows and
disembodied voices behind the veils:
“Pay lay ale. Pay lay ale. Pay lay ale.”
He swallowed hard.
“Oh Lord, hear the words of my mouth.”
... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

1. What was your response to the novel’s title? Did you understand it? Did it compel you to know more?

2. When Terrence Jensen decides to keep the murderer’s note to himself, what does he try to hide? What does this act reveal about Jensen and his community? (Chapter 2)

3. When you first meet Selonnah and her mother, what does the interaction reveal about their relationship? About each of their personal pains and issues? (Chapter 3)

4. How do Roger Zee’s personality and actions reflect the attitudes and problems in the Mormon Church? (Chapters 4, 9)

5. At the crime scenes, what do the symbols represent and mean? Think about the symbols on the victim’s bodies and in their surroundings. (Chapters 1, 6, 10, 13, 14, 30)

6. What are Roger and Eliza Zee’s misgivings about the Mormon Church? How do their questions contribute to the novel’s action and message? (Chapter 17)

7. How might the murders relate to the Mormon belief in atonement? How does this concept of atonement differ from the Christian belief in forgiveness? (Chapter 24)

8. Any good mystery has clues that the detective follows but also that the readers must follow. Discuss some of these clues. Which of them became essential in finding the murderer?

9. What are some elements of the Mormon Church that you didn’t know or didn’t understand? Do readers have to understand Mormonism to fully understand the story?

10. Do we fully understand the villain’s motivation? What about the motivation of the reporter and her cousin? What about the motivation of the Mormon Church in disseminating information and/or disinformation? How do these motivations play in the story?

11. Selonnah is an excellent reporter/researcher, able to intuitively piece together the real facts. At the same time, she’s seems uneasy in her personal life, especially about being single. Do you feel confident in some areas of life and insecure in others? Do you think most people feel this way? Why, or why not?

12. The murderer used complex symbolism to communicate his message at the crime scenes. Why would he use this symbolism? What does it reveal about him? How did you respond to the symbolism? Why?

13. A few people in this novel felt desperate about their circumstances and took action to changes their lives. Who were they? Some say, “Desperate times call for desperate measures.” Do you think this is true? Why, or why not?

14. Do you think this novel’s purpose was entertainment or communicating a message? Or both? Why, or why not?

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