J. D. HARKLEROAD

BOOKS OF THE WEST

Blood Atonement       (Contemporary Crime Fiction/Mystery)           ISBN 1-4137-3704-8

 

    Polygamy--with its dark side of incest,  enslavement, welfare fraud, and rape--is alive and well!

   Competition between a self-ordained "plig patriarch" and an upstart rival shatters Hart McKeon's modest dream of estalishing a trail-ride concession at Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah.  Although McKeon  has no connection with the pligs, one of the would-be patriarchs believes the cowboy has information that could axe his ambitions to gain control of a plig enclave and plots to remove Hart from the scene. As a result, Hart is unjustly charged with a crime and sent to the Utah State Prison. Ten years in the state pen toughen Hart, educate him in many ways--good and bad--and help him find faith.

When Hart is finally paroled, he resolves to put all bitterness and anger behind him and to look to the future. However, the pligs' ongoing power struggle threatens Hart's resolve, his life, and the life of the woman he has come to love.

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Review by D. Meredith, Ed. ROUNDUP Magazine, WWA

   Polygamy in modern Utah is the subject of Harkleroad’s novel.  The religious fanatic in this case is a deputy sheriff and the town of Prophet is an accessory, since most of its residents know the reputation of Rosamond Thulin and of her father, Deputy Sheriff Mav Thulin.  But eighteen-year-old Hart McKeon knows neither Rosamond’s last name nor her age.  Caught doing what teens usually do in a parked vehicle on a dark night, Hart is first beaten by Thulin, then arrested for rape.  After ten years in prison, Hart is paroled.  He returns to the vicinity of Prophet, to Bryce Canyon National Park where he is a wilderness guide.  Then fifteen-year-old Lisa Thulin is found raped and beaten unconscious in Hart’s cabin.  Hart is arrested again by now Sheriff Mav Thulin, and knows he may not live long enough to go to prison, but be damned if he will allow
himself to be railroaded again.

            Harkleroad explores the dark side polygamy, that’s supposing there is a light side, and sends chills up the spine of the reader.  Incest, domestic violence, and welfare fraud are just the beginning of the toll exacted by the practice.  Some readers may believe Harkleroad is exaggerating, but a friend and fellow WWA member investigated polygamy in Arizona until she was warned away from the subject.  The practice exists and I have no doubt that in the majority of cases it is as ugly as Harkleroad portrays it.  A
suspenseful, exciting book that attacks a form of domestic abuse few people know about, and those that do, don’t talk about it.