In the aftermath of the Columbine massacre, a small army of pundits rose up to access the meaning and greater implications of one of the most notorious mass murders in American history. Not surprisingly, the left and right both interpreted the event in ways that reflected their ideological biases: The left viewed it as a gun-control issue, and questioned a rigid, sometimes sadistic high-school caste system that plays havoc with the psyches of outcasts on its bottom rung. The right blamed the usual scapegoats: violent videogames, movies, and television shows, "shock rockers" like Marilyn Manson, and the absence of prayer in schools. But for a number of conservative fundamentalists, Columbine represented nothing less than the epic battle of good vs. evil played out in miniature. The last camp found a folk hero in Cassie Bernall, a troubled teen who found Christ and reportedly asserted her faith at gunpoint, becoming an electronic-age martyr in the process. Justin Watson's dry but engaging The Martyrs Of Columbine explores the Christian Right's embrace of Bernall and Rachel Scott, another Columbine casualty who may or may not have died a martyr's death. As the legend of Bernall and Scott spread, a cottage industry sprung up around it, complete with books, videotapes, hit songs, inspirational speeches, and even a short-lived magazine. Watson doesn't shy away from discussing how people, most notably the dead students' parents, used the girls' deaths to advance a fundamentalist agenda, but he thankfully refuses to caricature or demonize anyone involved. Instead, he opts for an objective, rational look at a politically loaded issue. Perhaps inevitably, cracks began appearing in the girls' mythology, with muckraking journalists calling the Scott/Bernall camp's account of the massacre into question. Although focused primarily on exploring the girls' posthumous legacy, Martyrs is partially devoted to determining what actually happened during the last moments of their lives. Ultimately, Watson concludes, it doesn't really matter to the girls' defenders whether their account is true. People with an agenda to promote will invariably embrace a dramatic, compelling falsehood that suits their needs over a messy, complicated truth that doesn't.