Cave Mountain: A Disappearance and a Reckoning in the Ozarks by Benjamin HaleMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Cave Mountain spins a true crime tale connecting the brief disappearance of a young girl in the Arkansas Ozarks and a murderous doomsday cult arrested nearby some 30 years prior. Hale's book began life as a piece for Harper's and often reads like a padded-out essay. The text attempts to interweave the 2001 disappearance of Hale's cousin Haley, a doomsday cult that in 1978 murdered a young child, Ozark religious extremism, and an atheists' questioning approach to Christianity; only the weft and warp never quite mesh. Cave Mountain works reasonably as a true crime book, but its nonlinear storytelling and wide thematic net make for a text that often feels jumbled.
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