How long does it take to read The 4 O'clock Murders?
The 4 O'clock Murders by Scott Anderson takes about 6 hours 44 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 6 hours 44 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1992. 367 pages, about 100,925 words.
14 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 11 hours 13 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 6 hours 44 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 4 hours 12 minutes |
The page count is the median across 3 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Texas residents are shocked when, at 4 P.M. an a June day in 1988, four people are slain in precisely timed attacks at three different locations in the state. Police know who the killers are, but cannot convict them. They also know who is giving the execution orders: a man buried in a Texas grave twelve years ago. Dubbed by the media as the "Mormon Manson," Ervil LeBaron believed he was a prophet chosen by God to purify the Mormon faith. Resurrecting the nineteenth-century Mormon tenets of polygamy and blood atonement, he formed a fanatic religious cult - still in existence - which has left bodies scattered throughout the American Southwest. So strong is LeBaron's hold that, even twelve years after his death, many of his thirteen wives and sixty children are still carrying out his orders. It is those orders that frighten law enforcement officials. Before he died, LeBaron penned a chilling last testament to his family, a death list called The Book of New Covenants. To date, five of those on the list have been murdered, and no one involved in the case believes the bloodshed is over yet. Investigative writer Scott Anderson presents an astonishing portrait of America's most bizarre crime family. In a meticulously researched book, Anderson follows the bloody trail of the LeBaron cult over twenty years, and reveals how it has been served by the controversial and hidden history of the Mormon church. As compelling as the best fiction, The 4 O'Clock Murders is all the more terrifying because it is true.
Subjects: Mormon Cult, Ervil LeBaron, Polygamists, Church of the Lambs of God, Revelations of convenience, True Crime
