A Fever In The Heart And Other True Cases (1996) - Plot & Excerpts
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 involved seem to have led charmed lives and yet that wasn't enough for two of them. When I read about something like this, I remember some of my earlier training in a small Catholic school. The nuns tried to instill in us the knowledge that big evil deeds and evil people hardly ever start out that way. In the beginning, people are usually just bending the rules. They know what they do is wrong, but they do it anyway. Little by little, they lose the ability to see how far they have gone. We were told to not give into temptation over the little things and our characters would be strong enough to withstand the large things that we really wanted to do. This story is such a sad example of this. None of this needed to happen if two people had been satisfied with what they had and not thrown it away for something fleeting and inferior.The last story, "Mirror Images", especially interested me because I worked in Juvenile Corrections. I was on a team which decided where to place the boys who were "sent away." I read the files of so many boys like the ones mentioned. One of the files I read was on Charles Manson and it was eerily like the file of James Ruzika. In so many cases, the boys were raised in single parent homes with mothers who have a series of relationships and children with multiple fathers. The start with a predictable pattern of theft, school problems, truancy and violence. In many cases, the boys are abused by their mother's partners and they are set up for deviant sexual behavior. Over time, we saw that many of the boys who came to us were becoming more and more emotionally disturbed. This was in the 70's and 80's. I can only guess at what it is like now. I'm afraid that cases like Ruzika and Harp are the tip of the iceberg.
I enjoy Ann Rule's true-crime books and this one, "A Fever In The Heart", is number 3 in her "Crime Files" series. This series consists of one full-length crime in the book, approximately 250 pages or so, and several smaller crime stories averaging around 20 pages each.The primary crime in this book took place in Yakima, Washington back in 1975. As I live only two hours away from there and have family members who currently live in Yakima I am familiar with the streets and landmarks described in the book. Although Rule has some habits in her writing that are really annoying to me, such as a penchant for describing how "thick" everyone's hair is and how it's "tumbling" down the person's back, she makes her crime stories real page-turners and so I put up with these aggravating and over-used phrases because of that. So if you like Ann Rule books you will not be disappointed with this one.**#9 of 100 books I have pledged to read and review during 2015**
What do You think about A Fever In The Heart And Other True Cases (1996)?
I have to give it three stars because I did finish it but this was definitely not one of Ann Rule's best. I thought it was her newest book out but it was actually written more than ten years ago. She should have kept it a short story. It was an interesting and very convoluted story, very strange, but she told it four or five times. And with a name like Morris Blankenbaker, why couldn't she have just used Morris instead of the full name every time. She must have gotten ten pages out of Blankenbaker alone. In other words she tried to stretch a short story into a full book.
—Peg
I thought I had read all of Ann Rule's book but somehow I missed this one. Came across it on Kindle and as with all her books had to read it! Great detail, almost too much because it leaves one jumping at strange noises, looking more warily at strangers (and people you think you know well) and just being creeped out at how horrid some people can be. Not sure how Ms Rule can immerse herself into researching and writing about these cases but am sure glad she does! I suspect she just likes trying to figure out what makes people do the things they do, which I also suspect is why people (including me) read her books. This book has the title story and several short stories, all true, all extremely well written.
—Becky
