THE BINDING OATH BOOK CLUB DISCUSSION GUIDE The protagonist, Liz O'Brien, is loosely based on an actual woman reporter for The Denver Post, a rarity in the 1920s. How do women reporters fare today? Was the murder the work of the Ku Klux Klan? Or was the killing connected with bootlegging rampant during Prohibition? Were the Denver police involved? If so, how? Why did thousands of people in Colorado—where few African Americans lived—join the Klan? RESEARCH NOTES After World War I, the Ku Klux Klan spread north with strongholds in the Midwest and Colorado. By 1923, the time of the novel, the Klan reported 3 million members nationwide. The Klan shifted its focus to include Catholics, Jews, and foreigners; and devoted itself to purging American life of "impure, alien influences." In Colorado, the Klan began as the Denver Doers Club in 1921. The following year it attempted to recall the Denver district attorney. The Klan infiltrated towns all across Colorado, skillfully adapting its message to local concerns. By 1925, it virtually controlled the state legislature. The Klan in Colorado disappeared nearly as quickly as it had appeared. By 1927, the Grand Dragon became too high-handed even for the tens of thousands who supported him. Denver's Mayor Stapleton's so-called Good Friday raids on Catholic households stopped. He by-passed the Klan-controlled police department and raided brothels and speakeasies. True civil rights gradually returned to Colorado.