Read Red - The Hypnotist & The lonely Polygamist

Read these Red Jacked novels recently. Very different. The Hypnotist was said to be in the same vein of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Seig Larson. NOT. The Hypnotist is written by Swedish Lars Kepler which is really a husband and wife team.

It is murder mystery, crime novel with a lot of violence. It is two stories, one in the present when the Hypnotist is helping to solve a

horrific crime. The other is 10

years prior when the Hypnotist got into trouble when his practice

turned wrong. I am not a mystery fan so it is not fair for me to judge this novel but for me it is poorly written and thumbs way down.

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall on the other hand was a delightful read. The best I have read in a long time. Not a page turner like the other book, but one where you turn the page with feeling of wanting more, not for it to end, but to stay with these very interesting characters. Golden Richards is a very ordinary man. A Mormon. And how he got to be one is very interesting. But he has 4 wives and 28 children. He struggles from day to day as a contractor to make enough money to provide for this family, to keep the wives content and help with the children. The story is told from Golden's point of view but also from the point of view of Rusty, the 11 year old son, soon to be twelve. Rusty lets us in on the problems of being one of 28. How do you get attention on YOUR birthday? How do you get any attention at all?

I have read several books about polygamy including Under the Banner of Heaven a non fiction reporting of Mormons with multiple wives.

IMO this fictional account gave me an over all impression of the challenges of plural marriage

with charm and humor.

I loved the story and the characters, so much that I ordered and am reading Udall's first novel, The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint.