A Twisted Faith, By Gregg Olsen (St. Martin's Press $25.99) Using actual interviews with the community, Gregg Olsen has written a True Crime book that reads like a novel. The town of Bainbridge and its residents across the Sound from Seattle are honestly portrayed here.
Nick Hacheney is the up-and-coming Youth Pastor at Christ Community Assembly when his wife tragically dies, in a day after Christmas fire at their home. The police and fire departments rely on the local coroner's office verdict that a crushed larnyx caused Dawn to die with no smoke in her lungs. Other troubling clues that were overlooked initially won't surface for several years. The church rallies around him, but soon rumors of inappropriate contact with a woman going through his Marriage Counseling surface. And then, another rumor. As the church shifts and begins to set out on it's own Apostolic journey, these hints are dismissed and simply not linked up.
Amazingly, it takes several years for this to finally come to light. By that time Nick has seduced 5 members of the congregation and manipulates these women for his own sexual quest. Justice will come to town, but it will take a long time.
Gregg Olsen has been a prolific author, documenting the Stella Nickells' Excederin capsule poisoning, Mary Kay Letourneaus' quest for true love, to the turn of the century Health Spa that starved its clients to death in Starvation Heights. He isn't flashy or gratuitous of his subjects, but treats them with respect and a critical eye.
A Twisted Faith is a fascinating look inside a church undone by murder and sexual obsession.
Thanks again to Gregg and St Martin's for my copy! It was a great read. I'm hoping he'll join us soon in Second Life and compare what we've learned of other Apostolic churches.
And today, at Noon Pacific Time, Peter May will be reading and discussing Virtually Dead, at Lacamas Hall in SL. Hope you can join us!
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When I read the title of this, for a fleeting moment I thought "At last, someone has had the courage to take on the faith whose name we dare not speak!" (It's Mahometanism, but you didn't hear that from me...)
ReplyDeleteThen I read the report and find it's another tired tome bashing Christianity. Even so, as I skimmed through Tammy's synopsis, I was visualizing the nefarious characters wearing turbans and burqas.
How does an imam seduce a woman wearing a burqa, anyway? Perhaps that's part of the idea behind them. And if you were a cross-dressing Islamopervyfascist, would you get a thrill from stepping out in public wearing one of them? I mean, it's not as edgy as walking down Main Street with hairy arms and facial stubble while wearing a low-cut rhinestone-studded evening gown. (Not that I'd fantasize about doing such a thing. In the burqa, at least.)
Somebody should write a book about stuff like THAT!