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A True Story of Domestic Terrorism in America's Heartland
by Dick Lehr
For fans of I'll Be Gone in the Dark, the thrilling true story of a would-be terrorist attack against a Kansas farming town's immigrant community, and the FBI informant who exposed it.
In the spring of 2016, as immigration debates rocked the United States, three men in a militia group known as the Crusaders grew aggravated over one Kansas town's growing Somali community. They decided that complaining about their new neighbors and threatening them directly wasn't enough. The men plotted to bomb a mosque, aiming to kill hundreds and inspire other attacks against Muslims in America. But they would wait until after the presidential election, so that their actions wouldn't hurt Donald Trump's chances of winning.
An FBI informant befriended the three men, acting as law enforcement's eyes and ears for eight months. His secretly taped conversations with the militia were pivotal in obstructing their plans and were a lynchpin in the resulting trial and convictions for conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.
White Hot Hate will tell the riveting true story of an averted case of domestic terrorism in one of the most remote towns in the US, not far from the infamous town where Capote's In Cold Blood was set. In the gripping details of this foiled scheme, we see in intimate focus the chilling, immediate threat of domestic terrorism—and racist anxiety in America writ large.
"Pulitzer finalist Lehr delivers a dramatic chronicle of a domestic terrorist plot thwarted by the FBI...illuminating...a chilling and finely wrought portrait of the threat of political extremism." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[Lehr's] lucid investigative prowess once again creates a dramatic tapestry of hate, hope, and justice...Comprehensive, riveting reportage on the enduring fight against domestic terrorism and racial violence." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A strong addition to true crime sections, this disturbing work will also appeal to readers interested in the development of modern hate groups." - Library Journal
"When we wonder about the how and why of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, White Hot Hate begins to provide an explanation. It is riveting and revelatory." - Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award–winning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist
"White Hot Hate is both a fascinating primer on radicalization and a page-turning, cinematic legal thriller. Encouraged by a white supremacist presidential candidate fomenting fear of immigrant 'infestation,' a small group of extremists plots an attack that would have caused more death and destruction than the horrific 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. A single witness to their plot manages to stop it, saving hundreds of lives and serving as a model of moral courage. The story teaches us about the potential power of a single, valiant voice." - Jessica Stern, author of Terror in the Name of God and member of the Homeland Security Experts Group
This information about White Hot Hate was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
dicklehr.com
Dick Lehr is a professor of journalism at Boston University. From 1985 to 2003, he was a reporter at the Boston Globe, where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in investigative reporting and won numerous regional and national journalism awards. Before that, Lehr, who is also an attorney, was a reporter at The Hartford Courant.
Lehr is the author of The Fence: A Police Cover-up Along Boston's Racial Divide, a non-fiction narrative about the worst known case of police brutality in Boston, which was an Edgar Award finalist for best non-fiction. He is coauthor of the New York Times bestseller and Edgar Award winner Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI and a Devil's Deal, and its sequel, Whitey: The Life of America's Most Notorious Mob Boss.
Lehr was a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford ...
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