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AE: Were you or the people who helped you ever in direct danger?
RB: If my cover had been blown I am quite certain I would have ended up decomposing in a shallow grave somewhere on the Arizona strip, and that is not an exaggeration. I went in without a cell phone or anything that would identify me. I used a false name and took with me false identification documents. Where I live, these circulate because there is a market for them among Mexican illegal immigrants.

I was terrified all the time and paranoid that I would somehow give myself away. The last thing my trainer told me before I set off was: “Remember, you know nothing but scripture.” Reminding myself of that helped me keep my ideas and opinions to myself.

Until very recently, I said nothing at all about how I researched this book, and I still cannot disclose specific details that could identify the people who helped me, because there would be direct consequences for them.

Lately, I have felt I can be more open about what I did because the FLDS “prophet” — read: dictator — Warren Jeffs, is now a fugitive on the FBI Ten Most Wanted list, and there is general confusion and disarray in the community. [ed. note: Jeffs was recently captured.] I think they have more to worry about than [they did during] my infiltration some time ago.

Silence and complicity have enabled this Taliban-like community to flourish on American soil, and I will not be a party to that.

AE: What were some of the things you witnessed that made their way into Grave Silence ?
RB: Virtually every detail of life among the FLDS presented in Grave Silence is as I witnessed it. Actually, I understated many elements because I thought readers would find it all so hard to believe.

Everything is true, from the little wall plaques emblazoned with “ Keep Sweet, No Matter What,” to the hoarding of weapons, to the instructions about food stamps on the walls of the supermarket and the shelves of lubricant gels, to the prayers by the head of the house, the reassignment of wives and children as punishment to keep men in line, the lack of education and contact with the outside world, and the systematic brutality and oppression.

The conventional wisdom in this community is that you can stop babies and small children from crying if you hit them hard enough or hold their heads under water — and they like their children to be silent. I saw children of 18 months and under punished this way routinely. Many of the young children I encountered seemed to be deeply traumatized, some almost catatonic, and there was a desperation about most of the women I encountered, a kind of numb unhappiness punctuated by rages — these usually directed at children or junior sister-wives.

The roundup and murder of every dog in the town was a real event. The banishment of young boys is true, and Uncle Warren's Sons of Helaman aka the God Squad are real — these thugs are the prophet's enforcers who go around terrorizing people. The approach to childbirth is exactly as I wrote it; they don't use doctors. I was involved in delivering a baby in filthy conditions — the woman was ill and should have been in the hospital. Had I reacted to any of this with the shock and horror I felt, I would have given myself away.

I think the memory that haunts me most to this day is that of the baby graveyard — those pathetic little earth mounds in a desert wasteland. I don't think there is any question that most of the children in these graves, many unmarked, were murdered by their parents. I included the graveyard among Detective Jude Devine's most upsetting recollections in Grave Silence.

AE: Has there been any backlash from the FLDS or Mormon church since the publication of Grave Silence?
RB: Not as far as I am aware. So far the book has flown under their radar, thanks, I suspect, to the fact that it is a lesbian detective story. I'm sure, as time goes by, I will see the usual “reviews” in Amazon insisting it's all inaccurate — which I guess would mean the FBI have it wrong, too.

The FLDS is finally getting some media attention. Anderson Cooper did a couple of programs on them very recently and a new documentary film, Banking on Heaven, has been released.

AE: Has anyone from Hilldale-Colorado City tried to follow up with you since you left?
RB: Yes, the people I stayed with contacted the family who brought me into Colorado City, wondering when I would be arriving with my daughters. I had sent word to these folks that I had decided not to proceed after all, God having shown me another path.

AE: What comes next in the Jude Devine series, and when will it come out?
RB: Sleep of Reason will be published in September 2006. This mystery, about the murder of a toddler, also kicks off the story of a lesbian domestic terrorist. This plot will be concluded in Place of Exile, the third Jude Devine mystery, due out in 2007.

Get Grave Silence at amazon.com

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