Jeff Guinn’s Waco

This April sees the return of Showtime’s Waco series in sequel miniseries The Aftermath, following the 2018 miniseries starring Michael Shannon and Taylor Kitsch, that portrayed the infamous 1993 standoff in Waco, Texas. Get yourself ready for the next chapter with Jeff Guinn’s compelling and unputdownable account of the story, Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage, now available from Simon & Schuster.

Between February 28 and April 19 1993, the U.S. federal government, Texas state law enforcement, and the U.S. military launched a siege on a compound owned by religious cult Branch Davidians. Resulting in a total of 86 deaths and the compound engulfed in flames, the siege was an unmitigated disaster. The story of how this tragedy occurred has been told before, but never to this level of insight and detail.

There is nobody better than Guinn, a member of the Texas Literary Hall of Fame, to bring this story back to life. Following his definitive books on Charles Manson and Jim Jones, Guinn has proven himself incredibly adept at getting into the minds of cult leaders – and Waco is one of his finest books yet. Over 400 pages, Waco tells us the parts of the story we know and builds on them with new revelations and puts them into a fresh context. The result is a book that changes our perception of the fascinating individuals at the heart of this dark story, with new eyewitness accounts offering a valuable insight into the inner-workings of the disastrous siege. 

The reverberations from February 28 1993 are still felt strongly today, and Jeff Guinn’s richly layered tome should be considered essential reading for anyone with an interest in psychology and history. 

Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage is now available from Simon & Schuster in hardback, ebook, and audio.
Waco: The Aftermath is set to air in the US from April 16 2023 with a UK release to be announced.