Sister Wife

221 pages. Octavo (8 1/2" x 6") bound in original publisher's black boards with red lettering to spine in original pictorial jacket. First edition, review copy with material laid in. Brigham Bybee, introduced in John Gates's acclaimed Brigham's Day, has withdrawn from the routine practice of law and purchased Piute Villa, a motel in Kanab, Utah -- not because he particularly wants to own a motel, but to be near the beautiful Zolene Swapp. But when the state deputizes him as a hired gun to prosecute and imprison the most notorious polygamist in the area, T. Rampton Crowe, Brig accepts: it all seems easy enough. Then Mercy confronts him. A runaway "plural wife" of Crowe's -- one of six wives -- she's beaten, bloody, and terrified and tells a story of murder and mutilation within the colony from which she's fled. Bybee decides to change his tactics: He's going after Crowe for murder. But this upsets the powers-that-be. They want one thing and one thing only -- a show trial on the polygamy charges to prove, as the Olympics prepare to come to Utah, that the state won't put up with immoral and backward behavior. This was to be a show trial, and that's all. As Mercy begins to insinuate herself into his life, Brig starts losing Zolene and discovers how far -- reaching the hand of power can be. Condition: A fine copy in like jacket.