ACCESS DIGITIZED EDITION
Guide/Reviews Database
HISTORY
Fleming, Candace

Death in the Jungle: Murder, Betrayal, and the Lost Dream of Jonestown

368 pp. | Random/Schwartz | April, 2025 | Trade ISBN 9780593480069 $19.99 | Library ISBN 9780593480076 $22.99 | Ebook ISBN 9780593480083 $11.99
(1) YA On Saturday, November 18, 1978, more than nine hundred members of Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple died at Jonestown in Guyana. Though the event was originally described as a mass suicide, it eventually became known that many, including infants, children, and the elderly, were murdered. Early chapters present a biographical treatment of Jones, covering his boyhood, marriage, and early Christian ministry in Indiana. Uncharacteristically for the time, his congregations were racially integrated, and they appealed to many as the civil rights era dawned. Eventually, in 1965, he moved Peoples Temple to California, shed ­Christianity in favor of socialism, and began steadily to exert control over every facet of his group, including members’ property, income, and relationships. Jones often used gross manipulation and deception to do so, and increasing scrutiny drove him to Guyana. When Congressman Leo Ryan came for an investigative visit, it set the tragic events in motion. It’s a testament to ­Fleming’s storytelling prowess that the book becomes more and more compelling despite our knowledge of the outcome. If some of her recent titles have contained elements of true crime, this one (along with Murder Among Friends, rev. 3/22) also dabbles in another genre: horror. Black-and-white captioned photo­graphs are gathered in the middle and at the end of the book. An annotated list of key people prefaces the volume, while an author’s note, sources, a bibliography, and an index are appended.
Reviewer: Jonathan Hunt | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2025

RELATED 

HISTORY

We Are Still Here!
by Sorell, Traci
HISTORY

Shaped by Her Hands
by , Freeman, Anna Harber & Gonzales, Barbara
HISTORY

Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians but Were Afraid to Ask
by Treuer, Anton
HISTORY

Classified
by Sorell, Traci
HISTORY

Susan La Flesche Picotte
by Bailey, Diane
More

Get connected. Join our global community of more than 200,000 librarians and educators.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing.

ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER?