This work from the author of “The Danish Girl” and “Pasadena” is a spellbinding work of literary suspense, set against the history of the Mormon Church, that combines historical fiction with a modern-day mystery.

It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of her family's polygamous history is revealed, including how both she and her mother became plural wives. Yet soon after Ann Eliza's story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds-a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father's death. And as Ann Eliza's narrative intertwines with that of Jordan's search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love, family, and faith.

DAVID EBERSHOFF is an adjunct assistant professor in the graduate writing program at Columbia University. He was for several years the publishing director of The Modern Library, a division of Random House. Originally from Pasadena, California, he now lives in New York City.