Overview

Higher Authority is a multiple-murder mystery, centered in Salt Lake City, and involving Mormons and the Mormon Church.

A young, aspiring comedienne, Teresa Crowder, asks her sister, Lauren, an Assistant D.A., to help her find an attorney to pursue a lawsuit against the secretary of a Justice of the Supreme Court, who also happens to be the first LDS Justice. The claim is that his secretary, a lesbian, propositioned her, aggressively pursuing a sexual relationship.

The attorney, Robin Torr, practices in Salt Lake City, and is naturally reluctant to accept the case. But Lauren and Robin are old classmates, and Robin agrees to take the case.

When several people involved in the case suddenly turn up dead, the case evolves from a simple harassment suit to the pursuit of a deranged killer, and the inevitable involvement of the Church in the murders.

Evaluation

I'm a big fan of murder mysteries. There are very few I don't like. Insofar as Higher Authority is a murder mystery, it's pretty good. It took me nearly 3/4 of the book to figure out "whodunnit." And even then, I didn't know how the whole thing would sort out until the last page.

But I read the book with another eye than just reviewing a murder mystery. From the beginning, it was clear that the author did quite a bit of research before putting pen to paper.

An author's note at the end of the book detailed his sources for information. And once I saw this, much of what bothered me about this book was cleared up. Among his sources: Rex Lee's What Do Mormons Believe -- straight as an arrow; Roughing It by Mark Twain -- the other end of the spectrum; Mormon Country by Wallace Stegner, not bad; Secret Ceremonies by Deborah Laake, hardly flattering.

And on and on it goes -- the mixture of flattery and contempt, history and folklore, doctrine and deceit. One could expect a somewhat schizophrenic view of Mormonism in this book, given the sources. One would not be disappointed.

Given the "exhaustive research" done in preparation for writing this book, consider the following embarrassing (to say the least) citations:

And the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is surely the only Christian faith whose Word of Wisdom includes rigid codes regarding the underwear to be worn by believers. (28)

And more wisdom on the Word of Wisdom:

      "You know the Word of Wisdom?"
      Lauren looked at Harley wide-eyed and shook her head.
      "It's a book of pronouncements by Mormon prophets, starting with Joseph Smith, about what we saints should and shouldn't do in order to live faithful, obedient lives." (64)

Huh? A "book of pronouncements"? Temple garments in the Word of Wisdom?

And here's something about Lehi's family that I'll bet you didn't know:

One of Lester Horner's revelations from the Lord had revealed that the land of the Ute Mountain Utes would be the site where the first hard evidence would be discovered to support the Mormon belief in the emigration of the Lamanites and the Nephites from Egypt to the New World.

Yup, bet you didn't know that there were Nephites and Lamanites before the death of Lehi, and I'll bet you really didn't know that they came from Egypt.

I'm grateful that Stephen White has provided these correctives.

Several places in the book sound like Mr. White had the need to insert a massive amount of "insider" stuff into a single paragraph, without giving anyone a clue as to what he's talking about. This lengthy paragraph (forgive the length and the obscenities, but I think it ought to be quoted in full) is a prime example:

"So what are they going to do to stop this woman, Wiley? I mean, let's face it, with the right slant this particular little tumor has the potential to make the Salamander thing look like a goddamn zit by comparison. So what's it going to be? You should know. Your firm does plenty of Church work. Will it be the pimple-faced boys in suits, two by two, proselytizing at her door day and and night, quoting the Book of Mormon until she either tithes or goes crazy? Or are they going to play hardball? Bring out the fabled Danites? Ooooooooh. Or maybe sic the FBI retreads in Church security on her? Or maybe this will be treated as a bloodless indiscretion and she'll get to get rich like Mark Hoffman and I'll end up having a discreet meeting in the foundations department at ZCMI with a representative of some apostle who will offer my client a sizable sum to confess the error of her ways and drop her action."

Whew! Let's recap -- Salamander, Danites, Mark Hoffman, ZCMI, all in one paragraph, nothing explained. Sounds like the guy wants to be considered an "insider." Trouble is, most "insiders" know the difference between the Word of Wisdom and the entire Doctrine and Covenants.

Page 340 yields an interesting comment:

In the same mall [ZCMI] was an outlet of Deseret Books, part of a Church-owned bookstore chain that sold only faith-promoting literature.

I am relieved. Now I can purchase Sunstone and Dialogue at my local DB, and not worry about the articles not being "faith-promoting."

There's more, but I think I've made my point.

Conclusion

Did I enjoy the book? Yes and no, depending on which level of enjoyment you're speaking of. As a murder mystery, it was, indeed, pretty good. He's written a few other mysteries, and I'll probably end up reading them.

But as a reflection of the author's willingness to get his facts straight about the Church, he leaves much to be desired. His research was exhaustive, but not thorough. Given the acknowledgements at the end of the book, he listened to many voices. I wonder how he made sense of the cacophony of sounds that came from those sources, how he managed to sort them out. He clearly didn't.

The Church comes off in a very negative way; there are no redeeming values to Mormonism anywhere in the book. Loyal Church members will not be amused. I, a non-member, was annoyed at his lack of objectivity, and his willingness to buy into every bad thing he'd read in his sources, ignoring the good that is there.

In the end, the Church has no principles, no moral ground, only a consuming passion for money, power and public relations.

I anxiously await his next book. Perhaps he'll investigate Judaism as thoroughly as he investigated Mormonism, and give us murder mystery surrounding the death of a Rabbi who was eating oysters on Yom Kippur.

... nfx v3.1 Jeff Needle/jeff.needle@giffy.com