The Doomsday Mother

Starred review from November 1, 2021
This chilling narrative from bestseller Glatt (Golden Boy: A Murder Among the Manhattan Elite) does justice to the case of Lori Vallow, who is accused of plotting the 2019 killings of her 16-year-old daughter, Tylee, and her seven-year-old son, J.J. Vallow became obsessed with the doomsday prophecy of her fifth husband, Chad Daybell, and the couple considered themselves “gods, leading an army of chosen ones to survive the end of world... on a divine mission to rid the world of evil zombies.” After Vallow came to believe that her children were zombies who stood in the way of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, she allegedly persuaded her brother Alex Cox that evil spirits had taken over the bodies of Tylee and J.J., leading him to kill them and hide their remains on Daybell’s Idaho property. Eventually, after Cox’s death from natural causes, the authorities gathered enough evidence to charge both Vallow and Daybell with murder; a trial date is pending. Despite readers knowing the grim ending from the start, Glatt’s extensive research, including interviews with family members, makes this a white-knuckle page-turner as he traces Vallow’s descent into madness. This definitive look at a case Glatt considers the most “terrifying” of his decades of experience as a journalist is must reading for true crime fans. Agent: Jane Dystel, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret Literary.