The King of Confidence
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Miles Harvey, Rengin Altay (Narrator), "The King of Confidence: A Tale of Utopian Dreamers, Frontier Schemers, True Believers, False Prophets, and the Murder of an American Monarch"
The "unputdownable" (Dave Eggers, National Book Award finalist) story of the most infamous American con man you've never heard of: James Strang, self-proclaimed divine king of earth, heaven, and an island in Lake Michigan, "[P]erfect for fans of The Devil in the White City" (Kirkus).
"A masterpiece." (Nathaniel Philbrick)
In the summer of 1843, James Strang, a charismatic young lawyer and avowed atheist, vanished from a rural town in New York. Months later he reappeared on the Midwestern frontier and converted to a burgeoning religious movement known as Mormonism. In the wake of the murder of the sect's leader, Joseph Smith, Strang unveiled a letter purportedly from the prophet naming him successor and persuaded hundreds of fellow converts to follow him to an island in Lake Michigan, where he declared himself a divine king.