first time i've dabbled in true crime, i liked it. no reason for me to be surprised i always watch the true crime shows "the first 48", "forensic files" and my favorite "las vegas jailhouse". two things i didn't like was lack of follow up on pertinent data or just telling me that some obvious sou...
I read a lot of Ann Rule but this one was especially exciting because it was close to home. Literally. I have been inside the home that the incident involving Kate Jewel took place. I live in the same town......And my mother was the one that took Kate's 911 call. I was just a child at the time an...
I like Ann Rule, I have a hard time writing reviews for True Crime, there is not much you can say about the story line, they are reporting what actually happened.That being said, the author does have to pick a case that will be interesting and then has to write it in a way that holds your attenti...
Ann Rule is the best true crime writer there is. In this book, she reviews 7 unsolved cases, each one more mysterious than the last. Her special gift is relating all the known facts of the case without bias, as if she were simply telling the story. The reader is allowed to feel compassion for ...
I love true crime stories, and I have found that Ann Rule's writing is certainly my style. She gives all the facts as well as some theories where necessary, but doesn't reach too far. I hate that whenever you hear a crime story on the news, you only hear one part of it. Crimes take time to solve ...
I gave this book 5 stars! The reason is beside Ann Rule knows what she writes about . The stories are all about true crime and though the subject isn't pleasant it is good to know that you cannot be too careful in life . I really dislike the fact that some of the cases Ann Rule writes about are s...
The main case is the Powell family from Utah which I remember reading about in the press. It is a sad story, but it is well-laided out and researched. Other cases include two unsolved suspicious deaths in California, a serial arsonist working out of a hotel, a man with a preference for blondes, a...
If any of you have read any of Ann Rule's true crime files,you'll know about what you get with these. She's a good writer,but these books have several stories all in one book . The main ones she takes the longest discussing are the Susan Powell case ,then the one about the little boy who fell ? o...
ABSOLUTELY LOVE ANN RULE BOOKS!!!! She is definitely, hands down the BEST CHOICE EVER to read when it comes to True Crime novels....who else would KNOW BEST first hand but an officer of the law how CRAZY people can be!!!! She has got to have a spine of steel to have dealt with all the crazies & t...
2.5 stars, rounded upI've been disappointed with Ann Rule's past several books. It feels like she's just fulfilling her contract, with little of the passion she had in her books from the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. The notable exception was the "Amorous Pizza Man" story. I found it engaging and...
The strap line on the English edition of this book carries the words 'The World's No. 1 True Crime Writer' and a read of this mammoth volume shows the reason why Ann Rule has that billing.As an investigative piece of true crime writing it is exhaustive and covers every aspect of a horrifying and ...
"Oh, I was just in the right place at the right time..."...NOT something that many of the women in Ted Bundy's life would come to say about meeting America's Grade-A machismo pin-up boy. In fact, as far as I can tell, Ann Rule was the only person to actually benefit from knowing him. And boy, d...
I was between a host of other books when I got my hands upon a stack of some twenty true crime books. The Riverman jumped out of the lot at me. The subtitle killed any doubts left "Ted Bundy and I hunt for the Green River Killer". This sounded like one of those Japanese monster vs monster premise...
Another well-detailed true crime book from Ann Rule. There is one main story, followed by several short tales. The main story is from over 25 years ago: the murder for hire of a man named Jerry Harris who was a force in the business world in California in the 1970’s and 1980’s until his murder ...
Journalist and novelist Ann Rule has compiled in one book a few of the more interesting cases she's reported on in her years as a crime reporter. Most of these cases took place in the states of Washington and Oregon in the 1960's and 70's. She also mentions that she had occasion to work with and...
Ann Rule is a terrific crime author. She lays out the whole story and rarely allows her own opinions regarding the case to filter into the pages of the book. She simply lays out the facts and allows the reader to come to their own conclusions.Bart Corbin had a huge problem with rejection. Of the ...
This is a first-rate offering from Ann Rule's "golden era" of the 1980s, in which she was a) tremendously prolific; b) tremendously comprehensive; and c) showed tremendously discerning taste in subject matter. The story: Talented but erratic ne'er-do-well David Brown lives in Southern California ...
You know, I feel really guilty about saying this but I don't feel bad for the victim in the first case of this book. Not the man, but the woman. I think I could've possibly tried to understand or relate to the victim if it hadn't involved her eldest daughter in that way.Here you have a man who is...
This is my third full length Ann Rule book and once again it involves parents manipulating, abusing and even killing, or attempting to kill their children. The story revolves around Pat Radcliffe Taylor Allanson and her many crimes. Raised as a spoiled rotten child who never heard the word no, ...
When young women begin mysteriously disappearing in Oregon, Police Lieutenant James Stovall leads a relentless search for a killer. With little evidence available, and the public screaming for answers, he must find a remorseless, brutal killer whose identity will shock them all ... One by one th...
9/6 - A true crime story of a mother who attempted to get rid of her kids because she believed that the man she was obsessed with would want her more if the kids were gone. I think this story would have been more horrific, would have had more of an impact on a reader when this was first publishe...
Ann Rule's books are always good and this was no exception. This is a series of stories loosely grouped around themes. The first story about Morris Blankenbaker is the saddest. A fine young man was killed and so many lives torn apart because of the basest kind of betrayal. All the people invo...
Ann Rule is at the top of her game in telling the true stories of these particular, mostly female, victims who either through no fault of their own or because of blameless naïveté ended up murdered. Unlike most of the victims in Rule's other books, the murdered had no reason to suspect they would...
Pretty good. I've read enough of her books to recognize a specific pattern. The people who've committed the heinous crimes depicted are, well, heinous. But Ann tends to depict the victims as being almost 'too' good. She also gives prodigious praise and goes into a lot of detail about investigator...
This book of Ann Rule is better categorized as a fiction book than a true crime book. However, the idea for this book came from a story that díd happen once for real. Ann Rule later wrote about this true story as part of her True Crime files series, but she always continued protecting the identit...
The end of the dream is a title which in this case applies to the criminal, not the victims.Rule fills in the blanks that we read in newspapers or web sites about these stories. In doing so, she humanizes the criminals to the point that I think some readers may misplace their sympathies and feel ...
After reading Small Sacrifices by Ann Rule last year I started to buy her books eager to read more. Many people have said that her longer books are better the crime files are missing something, while others that the crime files series are the best and the full books drag. So I decided to see fo...
Imagine, the nerve of me telling my attorneys what to do! Never called a judge at night in my life." Ted expected that he would get a fair trial in Aspen, and that it would not be difficult to pick an impartial jury in Pitkin County. He encouraged me to come for that trial if I could, and thought...
Cunningham's apartment," Shinn began, "youdidn't know anything about himþor about her, did you?" "No, other than that she was dead," Ayers said. Ayers recalled the one-hour-and-fifty-minute conversation he had hadthat night with Brad. It was to be the last time Brad would ever talkto him about a...
that most of us don’t remember that this appellation is relatively new to the jargon of forensic psychologists and detectives. Before 1982, all multiple killers were called “mass murderers.” Indeed, when I published my book about Ted Bundy, The Stranger Beside Me, in 1980, even he was called a ma...
Dad hoped I would do the same, but my heart was elsewhere. I was determined to become a cop. I was also eager to go to college. When my uncle Wes and aunt Louise Chamless offered to let me live with them rent-free in Los Angeles if I attended school there, I seized the chance. In the fall of 1961...
Mike had made most of the arrangements, but both families attended. Family and friends and the funeral home staff were shocked by Debora’s behavior in the narthex before the service started. She was very angry and made no effort to lower her voice. “She was rude and she was mean,” one funeral hom...
Christie never mentioned her mother, never asked about where Diane was or why she didn't come to visit. Christie still had great difficulty with speech, but she grew a little more verbal each week. She talked about Cheryl once she began to feel safer--but not in the context of the shooting. Inste...
Early on, court administrators had realized that the ferry ride to Friday Harbor and back to the home islands of jurors could very well be fraught with problems. The jurors were relegated to a particular section of the ferry decks, marked by tape, where they could not overhear comments by other p...
That was Anne Marie; she had been harassed, tormented, and stalked—but upon reflection, she felt sorry for Tom because of the gloomy picture he had painted of himself during his barrage of phone calls on Saturday. While other women would have been able to tell him where to go in unladylike terms,...
She can close her eyes and visualize it, even though Steve Sherer will probably never admit his crime. "I know that Jami was finally going to leave Steve that day," Judy says firmly. "She had made up her mind that nothing he could do would stop her. She told me she was on her way, and I believe s...