Author Brandon G. Kinney explores the complex series of events that led to the brief but bloody Mormon War of 1838, a conflict over religion, ideology, and land pitting Joseph Smith and his Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints against other Missouri residents, the governor, and the state militia.

Kinney is a graduate of the Creighton University School of Law and practices law in Butler, Missouri. He is the author of The Mormon War: Zion and the Missouri Extermination Order of 1838.