Dominic Bragg lived on an old bird sanctuary at the expense of his parents who “…believe they’re funding a wayward sensitive son as he lives ‘off the grid’.” Dom studied the methods of mind controlling used by Charles Manson, Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite and David Koresh, and believed he knew where they went wrong. His aim was to gather followers using his own way of controlling their minds, lead them on a path to enlightenment and then send them on their journey, while himself staying behind to do it all again.
Claire was one of Dom’s most devoted followers but after a series of shocking events she was now married, back living in a town where she was viewed with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion, and suffering from post traumatic stress. She had significant memory loss and wasn’t sure whether she wanted to get her memory back. When a man arrived in town with the purpose of dredging up the dark days of the cult’s demise for his podcast, Claire was forced into finally making that decision.
Only the Guilty Survive is a deep, dark, ultimately sad story. Cults are very strange phenomena which have been around for as long as people have been questioning the meaning of life and hoping for an after-life. Scarily, although Dom was aware that he was using and abusing his followers in insidious ways, he still believed he was purifying them in readiness for their perfect lives thereafter.
Creepy stuff but gripping reading. Kate Robards is a very good storyteller and has created some quite heart-breaking characters. In reality it would be hard to feel sorry for them, probably, but Dom was bending their wills so that they believed they were happy to live in quite deplorable conditions, much worse than anything they had left behind.
I recommend Only the Guilty Survive highly as a thoughtful study into human nature and, of course, as a compulsively readable book.
Published by Crooked Lane Books
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