Crime novelist Olsen (Heart of Ice
) paints a disturbing portrait of a community undone by its appealing young pastor. On Washington State's Bainbridge Island, across Puget Sound from Seattle, the fundamentalist Christ Community Church employed youth pastor Nick Hacheney, a charismatic if not attractive young man who'd grown up in the area. Hacheney was interested in counseling troubled married couples, but paid inordinate attention to the wives. On December 26, 1997, while Hacheney was out hunting, a fire consumed his house, killing his wife, Dawn. After this tragic accident, Hacheney sought comfort from the community—particularly the women. Soon he was involved in affairs with five women, one of them Dawn's mother, telling each that the sex was part of God's plan. Hacheney's conviction in 2002 for the murder of his wife came only after several of the women confided in others about their liaisons. Using firsthand interviews with members of the community, Olsen tells an unsettling story of a man who committed murder and then used his charm and his power as a man of God to exploit his congregants and satisfy his sexual obsession. Map. (Apr.)
