Desert Wives (Poisoned Pen Press) by Betty Webb is a mystery with an eye-popping expos of modern-day polygamy.
Private Detective Lena Jones is approached by Esther Corbett to rescue her 13-year old daughter, Rebecca, from Purity, a small village cult that straddles the Arizona-Utah boarder. The daughter has been promised in marriage by her non-custodial father to Prophet Soloman Royal, a leader of a polygamist sect. Prophet Soloman, an older man, already has multiple wives and dozens of children.
The rescue is perfectly executed, but on the way out of the area, Lena and the girl Rebecca stumble upon Prophet Soloman’s body. Lena’s client, the girl’s mother, is the only suspect and is jailed with the likelihood of prosecution.
Lena goes underground, pretending to be the second wife of a disgruntled cult-member, a man she meets on the “outside” who goes along with her scheme.
Along the way to solving the case, Webb does a masterful job of exposing what is still practiced in various communities in the Western United States, even though polygamy was banned in the United States in 1862. Some sects that practice do so by having a man marry one wife, divorcing her (though she retains his name and continues to live with him) and then marrying the next wife who also takes his name. This is repeated until he has married and divorced all his wives, except possibly the last one. Since only one wife is officially married to the husband at any one time, the polygamous family appears to exist within the law.
One of the common manifestations of this arrangement is that the now single wives can claim public support as single parents. Cults are encouraged to have many children and a man may have dozens of children, all supported by the state.
Another polygamist practice commonly used is for a man to seek only one marriage license for the first marriage, and the subsequent marriages are secretly carried out in private ceremonies. Thus, the subsequent wives are seen by law as single parents.
Young men are often forced to leave their community so that women they would otherwise marry will be left to provide wives for older polygamous males, thus increasing the community income. Within many cults, young girls, often younger than the legal age of consent, are subjected to arranged marriages. Since marriages often take place within their own communities, it is not uncommon for fairly close relatives to marry, leading to inbreeding and subsequent birth defects.
In this review, I have presented the polygamist practices as presented by Desert Wives. I conducted additional research to determine the accuracy of the author’s premise for this novel and found the facts well supported. NOTE: My research also revealed that there are other polygamists who don’t live in cults and who are not organized to profit by collecting welfare.
Desert Wives is the second of the Lena Jones Mystery Series. Webb does a good job of creating suspense, using humor along the way. But for me, the value of this book is the exposure of what today is still happening in the Western United States. Desert Wives is a worthwhile, educational, yet enjoyable read. For more information about the author, visit www.bettywebb-mystery.com
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It sounds like an interesting novel. HBO’s series, ‘Big Love’ presented similar story lines. Thanks for the review.
I really enjoyed this book too. Fascinating and a thrilling mystery story! Good review, Mary.