Ann Rule Books In Order

Crime Files Books In Publication Order

  1. A Rose for Her Grave and Other True Cases (1993)
  2. You Belong to Me and Other True Crime Cases (1994)
  3. A Fever in the Heart and Other True Cases (1996)
  4. In the Name of Love and Other True Cases (1998)
  5. The End of the Dream (1998)
  6. A Rage to Kill and Other True Cases (1999)
  7. Empty Promises and Other True Cases (2001)
  8. Last Dance, Last Chance (2001)
  9. Kiss Me, Kill Me and Other True Cases (2004)
  10. Worth More Dead and Other True Cases (2005)
  11. No Regrets and Other True Cases (2006)
  12. Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder and Other True Cases (2007)
  13. Mortal Danger and Other True Cases (2008)
  14. But I Trusted You and Other True Cases (2009)
  15. Don’t Look Behind You (2011)
  16. Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors and Other True Cases (2012)
  17. Lying in Wait and Other True Cases (2014)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Possession (1981)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. The Stranger Beside Me (1980)
  2. Lust Killer (1981)
  3. The Want-Ad Killer (1983)
  4. The I-5 Killer (1984)
  5. Mind Games (1984)
  6. Small Sacrifices (1987)
  7. If You Really Loved Me (1991)
  8. Everything She Ever Wanted (1992)
  9. Dead By Sunset (1995)
  10. Bitter Harvest (1997)
  11. And Never Let Her Go (1999)
  12. Jerry Harris Case (1999)
  13. Every Breath You Take (2001)
  14. Without Pity (2003)
  15. Heart Full of Lies (2003)
  16. Green River, Running Red (2004)
  17. Too Late to Say Goodbye (2007)
  18. In the Still of the Night (2010)
  19. Practice to Deceive (2013)

Fearless Jones Books In Publication Order

  1. The Plot Thickens (With: Janet Evanovich,Lawrence Block,Linda Fairstein,Nelson DeMille,Donald E Westlake,Mary Higgins Clark,Carol Higgins Clark,Nancy Pickard,Walter Mosley,Edna Buchanan) (1997)
  2. Fearless Jones (By:Walter Mosley) (2001)
  3. Fear Itself (By:Walter Mosley) (2003)
  4. Fear of the Dark (By:Walter Mosley) (2006)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. The Plot Thickens (1997)

Crime Files Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Non-Fiction Book Covers

Fearless Jones Book Covers

Anthologies Book Covers

Ann Rule Books Overview

A Rose for Her Grave and Other True Cases

Ann Rule’s Crime Files books have delivered the very best in true crime reading since A Rose for Her Grave, first in the acclaimed series, made its debut. Distinguished by the former Seattle policewoman’s razor sharp eye for telling detail and her penetrating analysis of the criminal mind, this gripping collection of accounts drawn from her personal files features the twisting case of Randy Roth, who married and murdered for profit. In her trademark narrative style, Ann Rule weaves a tale that is riveting, enraging, and heartbreaking all at once, and brilliantly chronicles the fateful confluence of a killer and his female victims, as well as the shattering investigation into Roth’s heinous crimes.

You Belong to Me and Other True Crime Cases

Ann Rule is the author of THE STRANGER BESIDE ME, the bestselling and extraordinary study of serial killer Ted Bundy which is now recognised as a classic of true crime reporting. A former Seattle policewoman, she has extensive experience of violent crime and brings this knowledge to bear in this, her latest collection of fascinating case studies. YOU BELONG TO ME focuses on one of Florida’s most shocking criminals Tim Harris, the poster perfect ‘All American’ State Trooper who hid bizarre and fatal fantasies behind his badge of authority. Bearing the stamp of classic Ann Rule that makes her books such extraordinary page turners, this and other cases from her personal files prove once again her undisputed status as the Queen of True Crime.

A Fever in the Heart and Other True Cases

A collection of true crime stories features the title work in which the author examines the facts behind midwestern love triangle between an alluring woman and two male rivals that exploded in murder.

In the Name of Love and Other True Cases

THERE WAS ONLY ONE WAY TO PLEASE HER FATHER: MURDER HIS WIFE…
. Ann Rule’s 1 bestselling true crime masterpiece features compelling updates to the shattering case brilliantly chronicled in If You Really Loved Me. David Brown was the consummate entrepreneur: a computer wizard and millionaire by age thirty two. When his beautiful young wife was shot to death as she slept, Brown’s fourteen year old daughter, Cinnamon, confessed to killing her stepmother. The California courts sentenced her harshly: twenty four years to life. But in the wake of Cinnamon’s murder conviction, thanks in part to two determined lawmen, the twisted private world of David Brown himself unfolded with astonishing clarity revealing a trail of perverse love, twisted secrets, and evil mind games. A complex and often dangerous investigation suggested a horrifying scenario: was the seemingly bland David Brown really a stone cold killer who convinced his own daughter to prove her love by killing for him? A man who turned young women into his own personal slaves, who collected nearly $1 million in insurance money, and married his dead wife’s teenage sister, David Brown was a sociopath who would stop at nothing…
a deadly charmer who almost got away with everything.

The End of the Dream

AS SEEN ON 48 HOURS AN EXPLOSIVE ACCOUNT OF LETHAL GREED AND TWISTED DESIRE, FROM THE FILES OF AMERICA’S 1 TRUE CRIME WRITER, ANN RULE They were best friends, four talented and charismatic young men who lived charmed lives among the evergreens of Washington state: Kevin, the artist; Steve, the sculptor; Scott, the nature lover and unabashed ladies’ man; and Mark, the musician and poet. With their stunning good looks, whip sharp minds, athletic bodies and no lack of women who adored them none of them seemed slated for disaster. But few knew the reality behind the leafy screen that surrounded Seven Cedars, Scott’s woodland dream home a tree house equipped with every luxury. From this idyllic enclave, some of these trusted friends would become the quarry for a vigilant Seattle police detective and an FBI special agent, who unmasked clues to disturbing secrets that spawned murder, suicide, million dollar bank robberies, drug dealing, and heartbreaking betrayal. When the end came in a violent stand off, the ringleader of the foursome the fugitive dubbed ‘Hollywood’ for his ingenious disguises and flawless getaways; the persuasive talker who turned his friends into accomplices faced a final chapter no one could have predicted. In a blast of automatic gunfire, the highest and lowest motives of the human heart were, at last, revealed. Along with four other true crime tales, The End of the Dream is a masterful and compelling tour of the criminal mind from Ann Rule.

A Rage to Kill and Other True Cases

Acclaimed for her ‘devastatingly accurate insight’ The New York Times Book Review into the criminal mind, Ann Rule has chronicled the most fascinating cases of our time in her bestselling Crime Files series. For this sixth stunning collection, Rule has culled from her private files the most asked about homicide cases riveting accounts of seemingly normal men and women who are compelled d by a murderous rage to suddenly lash out at innocent victims. Torn from the headlines, here is the case that shocked a nation: the Seattle city bus ride that turned to mayhem and murder at the hands of a gunman. Ann Rule unmasks the forces that drove quiet, clean cut Silas Cool to shoot the driver, causing the bus to plunge off the Aurora Bridge into an apartment building. The catastrophe left three dead including Cool and dozens injured. While the scene unfolds as in a terrifying movie, Rule finds very real answers to the haunting question ‘how could this happen?’ and expertly constructs the unseen chain of events that resulted in an explosive and shattering tragedy. Included here are nine other sensational cases that illuminate Rule’s unique and authoritative view of the human psyche gone temporarily berserk. No one can match Rule’s meticulous research, or reveal the motives to murder in such explicit and chilling detail. You may think you know who is safe and who is dangerous; in A Rage to Kill, Ann Rule frighteningly shows that none of us are truly protected from the flashes of irrational violence that can erupt from the killers among us.

Empty Promises and Other True Cases

MORE THAN 20 MILLION COPIES OFANN RULE’S BOOKS IN PRINT! In this unnerving collection drawn from her personal crime files, ‘America’s best true crime writer’ Kirkus Reviews Ann Rule brilliantly dissects the convoluted love affairs that all too often end in violence. Expertly analyzing a shocking, headline making case, Rule unmasks the deadly motives inside a seemingly idyllic marriage: a beautiful young wife, a rising star in America’s top ranked computer corporation, and a prosperous husband, the scion of a family building business. With an adorable son and a gorgeous home, the couple seemed to have it all. But a furtive evil permeated their days and nights, dragging them into a murky world of drugs, sordid sex, and con operations. In this realm, one of them would prove to be a virtual innocent, the other a manipulator with no conscience. Sudden, violent death brought their charade of a fairy tale romance to a tragic end with a brutal crime that might never have come to light were it not for the stubborn detectives and prosecutors whose fight for justice spanned an entire decade. Empty Promises recounts several other cases where the search for love brought only lies and betrayal a cautionary primer, perhaps, for those who trust too much too soon. Powerful because they strike so close to home, the cases in Empty Promises will leave readers shaken by the realities of love gone terribly and fatally wrong.

Last Dance, Last Chance

‘America’s best true crime writer’ Kirkus Reviews, Ann Rule presents an all new collection of crime stories drawn from her private files and featuring the riveting case of a fraudulent doctor whose lifelong deceptions had deadly consequences. LAST DANCE LAST CHANCE Dr. Anthony Pignataro was a cosmetic surgeon and a famed medical researcher whose flashy red Lamborghini and flamboyant lifestyle in western New York State suggested a highly successful career. But appearances, as this shocking insider account of Pignataro’s tailspin from physician to prisoner proves, can be deceiving and, for the doctor’s wife, very nearly deadly. No one was safe if they got in his way. With scalpel, drugs, and arsenic, he betrayed every oath a physician makes until his own schemes backfired. Now, the motivations of the classic sociopath are plumbed with chilling accuracy by Ann Rule. Along with other shocking true cases, this worldwide headline making case will have you turning pages in disbelief that a trusted medical professional could sink to the depths of greed, manipulation, and self aggrandizement where even slow, deliberate murder is not seen for what it truly is: pure evil.

Kiss Me, Kill Me and Other True Cases

The dark side of love is no fairy tale…
. And while we may like to believe that crimes of the heart only victimize those who aren’t careful, this page turning collection of must read accounts will convince you otherwise. America’s 1 true crime writer, Ann Rule reveals how lovers become predators, how sex and lust can push ordinary people to desperate acts, and how investigators and forensics experts work to unravel the most entangled crimes of passion. Extracting behind the scenes details, Rule makes these volatile relationships utterly real, and masterfully re creates the ill fated chains of events in such cases as the ex Marine and martial arts master who seduced vulnerable women and then destroyed their lives…
the killer whose calling card was a single bloodred rose…
the faithless wife who manipulated and murdered without conscience…
the blind date that set the stage for a killer’s brutality…
and more. In every case, the victim young and innocent or older and experienced unknowingly trusted a stranger with the sociopathic skill to hide their dark motives, until it was too late to escape a web of deadly lies, fatal promises, and homicidal possession.

Worth More Dead and Other True Cases

Why would a man kill his lover’s husband and then his wife, the woman who fought successfully to have him paroled from prison? Why would he risk arrest by kidnapping the child of another woman who adored him? Because they were…
Worth More Dead A cold case reopened and solved with dogged police work and new evidence. One of the shocking true crimes of passion and greed from Ann Rule’s Crime Files. Former Marine sergeant and judo instructor Roland Pitre Jr. claimed it was all an elaborate plan to win back his wife’s love it wasn’t supposed to end with her dead body in the trunk of a car. Nearly twenty years later, he acknowledged that he had hired someone to kill his estranged wife in 1988, though his alleged excuse for why a monstrous ‘mistake’ happened is as shocking and convoluted as the crime itself. Eventually, he was charged with first degree murder in the long unsolved death of Cheryl Pitre, after a mysterious witness betrayed Pitre to save his own skin. Tracing back the dark and bloody path of Pitre’s life, two generations of detectives found a chain of brutal and terrifying crimes by a man who manipulated the courts and prisons to walk free.

No Regrets and Other True Cases

A ship’s pilot legendary for guiding mammoth freighters through the narrows of Puget Sound, Rolf Neslund was a proud Norwegian, a ladies’ man, and a beloved resident of Washington State’s idyllic Lopez Island. Virtually indestructible even into his golden years, he made electrifying headlines more than once: after a ship he was helming crashed into the soaring West Seattle Bridge, causing millions in damages; and following his inexplicable disappearance at age 80. Was he a suicide, a man broken by one costly misstep? Had he run off with a lifelong love? Or did a trail of gruesome evidence lead to the home Rolf shared with his wife, Ruth? On an island where everyone thought they knew their neighbors, the veneer of the Neslunds’ marriage masked a convoluted case that took many years to solve. And, indeed, some still believe that the old sea captain will come home one day. ‘The Sea Captain’ is a classic tale as blood chilling as murder itself. Along with six other equally riveting, detailed accounts of destruction and murder committed without conscience or regret, Ann Rule takes readers into frightening places they never could have imagined in No Regrets.

Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder and Other True Cases

Includes Ann Rule’s insider commentary on the Mary Winkler murder case REAL LIFE MURDER. REAL LIFE MYSTERY. In some murder cases, the truth behind the most tragic of crimes crystallizes with relative ease. Not so with these fascinating accounts drawn from the personal files of Ann Rule, America’s 1 bestselling true crime writer. What happens when the case itself becomes an intractable puzzle, when clues are shrouded in smoke and mirrors, and when criminals skillfully evade law enforcement in a maddening cat and mouse chase? Even the most devoted true crime reader won’t predict the outcome of these truly baffling cases until the conclusions revealed in Ann Rule’s marvelously insightful narrative: An ideal family is targeted for death by the least likely enemy, who plotted their demise from behind bars…
. A sexual predator hides behind multiple fake identities, eluding police for years while his past victims live in fear that he will hunt them down…
. A modest preacher’s wife confesses to shooting her husband after an argument but there’s more to her shattering story than meets the eye. These and other true cases are analyzed with stunning clarity in a page turning collection you won’t be able to put down.

Mortal Danger and Other True Cases

FROM TRUST TO TERROR…
FROM SECURITY TO SURVIVAL The author of The Stranger Beside Me brings her brilliantly informed understanding of the sociopath to this riveting truecrime collection. Only Ann Rule, who unknowingly worked alongside the smart and charming Ted Bundy America’s most notorious serial killer could lend her razor sharp insight into these cases of the spouse, lover, family member, or helpful stranger who is totally trusted but whose lethally violent nature, though masterfully disguised, can and will kill. Featured here is the case of a Southern California family man who appeared to be the picture of healthy living with his expertise in naturopathic healing. Luring a beautiful flight attendant into a passionate affair, he swept her away to a secluded home on the Oregon coast where his jealous rages escalated, ultimately leading to a brutal sex attack in which she believed she would die. How this brave victim survived, never knowing her tormentor’s whereabouts, and how he resurfaced, forcing a tragic end for all involved, makes this one of Ann Rule’s most compelling narratives. Other cases include that of the woman who masterminded her husband’s murder to gain his inheritance…
the monstrous sad*ist whose prison release damaged a presidential candidate’s campaign and ended in a bitter double tragedy in a quiet neighborhood three thousand miles away…
the shocking DNA link between a cold blooded crime and a cold case…
and inside the horrific case of the man who crossed an ocean and several countries to stalk the Eurasian beauty who had fled from him in desperation.

But I Trusted You and Other True Cases

THE MOST FATAL MISTAKE? Trust. It’s the foundation of any enduring relationship between friends, lovers, spouses, and families. But when trust is placed in those who are not what they seem, the results can be deadly. Ann Rule, who famously chronicled her own shocking experience of unknowingly befriending a sociopath in The Stranger Beside Me, offers a riveting, all new collection from her true crime files, with the lethally shattered bonds of trust at the core of each bloodsoaked account. Whether driven to extreme violence by greed or jealousy, passion or rage, these calculating sociopaths targeted those closest to them unwitting victims whose last disbelieving words could well have been ‘but I trusted you…
.’ Headlining this page turning anthology is the case of middle school counselor Chuck Leonard, found shot to death outside his Washington State home on an icy February morning. A complicated mix of family man and wild man, Chuck played hard and loved many…
but who crossed the line by murdering him in cold blood? And why? The revelation is as stunning as the shattering crime itself, powerfully illuminating how those we think we know can ingeniously hide their destructive and homicidal designs. Along with other shattering cases, immaculately detailed and sharply analyzed by America’s 1 true crime writer, this fourteenth Crime Files volume is essential reading for getting inside the mind of the hidden killers among us.

Don’t Look Behind You

I LL BE WATCHING YOU Walking home on a dark night, you hear footsteps coming up behind you. As they get closer, your heart pounds harder. Who is closing in with dangerous intent a total stranger? Or someone you know and trust? The answer is as simple as turning around, but don t look behind you…
run. Ann Rule, who shared her own nerve jangling account of unknowingly befriending sad*istic sociopath Ted Bundy in The Stranger Beside Me, chronicles other fateful encounters with the hidden predators among us in this riveting collection, fifteenth in the bestselling series drawn from her personal files. First in line is a stunning case that spanned thirty years and took a determined detective to four states ending, finally, in Alaska where he unraveled not one but two murders. A second case appears to begin and end with the hunt for the Green River Killer, focusing on a Washington State man who was once cleared as a suspect in that deadly chain of homicides. But the millionaire property owner believed he had successfully buried his own murderous past and the awful truth behind his young wife’s disappearance. She vanished soon after she left for a day at the Seattle World s Fair, and her three small children grew up believing their mother had abandoned them. But one amazing witness remained the missing woman s best friend, who heard her last words in a frantic phone call He s coming! before the line went dead. Only since Robert Hansen s suicide has the monster within been revealed. In another true story, a petite woman went to a tavern, looking only for conversation and fun. Instead, she met violent death in the form of a seven foot man who had seemed shy and harmless. You ll feel a chill as you uncover these and numerous other cases of unfortunate victims who made one tragic mistake: trusting the wrong person even someone they d known intimately, or thought they knew.

Possession

When Danny and Joanne Lindstrom’s camping trip in the Cascade mountains goes terribly awry, beautiful younge Joanne is left alone and stranded in the savage wilderness. Her last hope is to rely on another camper, a tall stranger who seems to know the forest and the dangers there all too well. Without him, she will surely die; with him, her future is as unpredictable as the lowering clouds that envelop the mountain. He asks only that she trust him…
totally.

The Stranger Beside Me

Ann Rule was a writer working on the biggest story of her life, tracking down a brutal mass murderer. Little did she know that the young man who was her close friend was the savage slayer she was hunting. Ted Bundy was everyone’s picture of a natural ‘winner’ handsome, charming, brilliant in law school, successful with women, on the verge of a dazzling career. On January 24, 1989 Ted Bundy was executed for the murders of three young women; he subsequently confessed to taking the lives of a least thirty five more young women, coast to coast. This is his story the story of his magnetic power, his unholy compulsion, his demonic double life, and his string of helpless victims. It was written by a woman who thought she knew Ted Bundy, until she began to put all the evidence together, and the whole terrifying picture emerged…
Ann Rule was a writer working on the biggest story of her life, tracking down a brutal mass murderer. Little did she know that the young man who was her close friend was the savage slayer she was hunting. Ted Bundy was everyone’s picture of a natural ‘winner’ handsome, charming, brilliant in law school, successful with women, on the verge of a dazzling career. On January 24, 1989 Ted Bundy was executed for the murders of three young women; he subsequently confessed to taking the lives of a least thirty five more young women, coast to coast. This is his story the story of his magnetic power, his unholy compulsion, his demonic double life, and his string of helpless victims. It was written by a woman who thought she knew Ted Bundy, until she began to put all the evidence together, and the whole terrifying picture emerged…

Lust Killer

Linda Slawson disappeared while trying to make a living selling encyclopaedias door to door. Jan Whitney never completed her two hour drive home on the freeway. Karen Sprinkler failed to turn up for lunch with her mother. As a pattern of disappearances emerges, Oregon State Police launch a search for the sad*istic monster capable of the most grisly murders.

The Want-Ad Killer

After his first grisly crime, Harvey Louis Carignan beat a death sentence and continued to manipulate, rape, and bludgeon women to death using want ads to lure his young female victims. And time after time, justice was thwarted by a killer whose twisted legal genius was matched only by his sick savagery. Here, complete with the testimony of women who suffered his unspeakable sexual abuses and barely escaped with their lives, and of the police who at last put him behind bars, is one of the most shattering and thought provoking true crime stories of our time. Includes 8 pages of photographs From the 1 New York Times bestselling author of Small Sacrifices, Lust Killer, The Stranger Beside Me, and The I 5 Killer ‘Rule has an instinct for suspense.’ Washington Post Book World ‘Rule springs surprises and revelations with a novelist’s skill.’ Seattle Times

The I-5 Killer

As a young man, Randall Woodfield had it all a star athlete, good looks, and an award winning student. Working in the swinging West Coast bar scene, he had more than his share of women. But he wanted more than just sex. An appetite for unspeakable violent acts led him to cruise the I 5 highway through California to Washington, leaving a trail of victims along the way. As the list of the dead grew, the police mobilized to stop a twisted killer who had 44 known deaths to his name. Praise for Ann Rule: ‘Vivid…
Extraordinary…
A page turner!’ New York Times Book Review, for Small Sacrifices ‘Rule has an instinct for suspense, knowing just what information to leak to the reader and when.’ Washington Post Book World, for Small Sacrifices ‘A shattering story…
carefully investigated, written with compassion but also with professional objectivity.’ Seattle Times, for The Stranger Beside Me

Small Sacrifices

Ann Rule’s shocking and powerful account of the destructive forces that drove Diane Downs, a beautiful young mother, to shoot her three young children in cold blood.’Vivid…
. Extraordinary…
a page turner.’ New York Times Book Review’Superb…
a riveting detective story.’ Indianapolis Star’A harrowing pathological portrait…
.A work of resonance and revelation with breath stopping tension to the end.’ Kirkus Reviews’Fascinating…
grisly…
un putdownable.’ New York Daily News’Excellent…
. One of the most detailed studies of a sociopath to dignify the true crime circuit.’ The San Francisco Chronicle’A raw docudrama of almost unbelievable intensity.’ Booklist Also by Ann Rule in Signet’s newly repackaged editions: The Stranger Beside Me 4/99, The I 5 Killer 6/99, The Want Ad Killer 8/99, The Lust Killer 10/99

If You Really Loved Me

THERE WAS ONLY ONE WAY TO PLEASE HER FATHER: MURDER HIS WIFE…
. Ann Rule’s 1 bestselling true crime masterpiece features compelling updates to the shattering case brilliantly chronicled in If You Really Loved Me. David Brown was the consummate entrepreneur: a computer wizard and millionaire by age thirty two. When his beautiful young wife was shot to death as she slept, Brown’s fourteen year old daughter, Cinnamon, confessed to killing her stepmother. The California courts sentenced her harshly: twenty four years to life. But in the wake of Cinnamon’s murder conviction, thanks in part to two determined lawmen, the twisted private world of David Brown himself unfolded with astonishing clarity revealing a trail of perverse love, twisted secrets, and evil mind games. A complex and often dangerous investigation suggested a horrifying scenario: was the seemingly bland David Brown really a stone cold killer who convinced his own daughter to prove her love by killing for him? A man who turned young women into his own personal slaves, who collected nearly $1 million in insurance money, and married his dead wife’s teenage sister, David Brown was a sociopath who would stop at nothing…
a deadly charmer who almost got away with everything.

Everything She Ever Wanted

WAS SHE A SWEET SOUTHERN CHARMER? OR A COLD BLOODED KILLER? For their wedding portrait, petite Pat Taylor and handsome Tom Allanson posed as Rhett and Scarlett. Both came from fine Southern families, and dreamed of the Tara like plantation where they would grow roses, raise horses, and move in the genteel circles of Atlanta society. Less than two months later, their dream exploded in terror and murder: their beautiful home mysteriously burned to the ground and Tom was convicted of the brutal slaying of his mother and father. Pat’s only brother had died in a puzzling suicide, her grandparents in law were poisoned with arsenic, and no one from her wealthy employers to her own children was safe when Pat Allanson didn’t get her way. It took Georgia lawmen more than two decades to stop her for good if indeed they have. In this fascinating account, Ann Rule delivers a tour de force: a whirlwind of misguided love, denial, guilt, and passions out of control; a series of brilliantly manipulated crimes; the bizarre and horrifying tale of two families brought to ruin; and, at the center of it all, the heartless, supremely selfish sociopath whose evil hid behind soft words and gentle manners, but who destroyed without mercy those who loved her.

Dead By Sunset

The author of eight New York Times bestsellers, Ann Rule first won nationwide acclaim with The Stranger Beside Me, about serial killer Ted Bundy. Her Crime Files volumes, based on fascinating case histories, have assured her reputation as our premier chronicler of crime. Now the former Seattle policewoman brings us the horrific account of a charismatic man adored by beautiful and brilliant women who always gave him what he wanted…
sex, money, their very lives…
. When attorney Cheryl Keeton’s brutally bludgeoned body was found in her van in the fast lane of an Oregon freeway, her husband, Brad Cunningham, was the likely suspect. But there was no solid evidence linking him to the crime. He married again, for the fifth time, and his stunning new wife, a physician named Sara, adopted his three sons. They all settled down to family life on a luxurious estate. But gradually, their marriage became a nightmare…
. In this gripping account of Cheryl’s murder, Ann Rule takes us from Brad’s troubled boyhood to one of the most bizarre trials in legal history, uncovering multiple marriages, financial manipulations, infidelities, and monstrous acts of harassment and revenge along the way. Dead By Sunset is Ann Rule at her riveting best.

Bitter Harvest

On the night of October 23/24, 1995 in Prairie Village, Kansas, a fierce, wind driven fire devastated the luxurious mansion of Dr. Debora Green and her husband, Dr. Michael Farrar. Trapped and burned to death in the flames were twelve year old Tim and his six year old sister Kelly. Lissa, ten, was barely able to leap to safety from the garage roof into the arms of her mother, who was standing outside the house. When Michael Farrar returned to the scene, he had lost more than his children and his home. His entire life was in ruins.

The fire was the climactic event of Michael and Debora’s lives. Until that summer, they seemed to have it all a happy marriage, successful medical practices, three bright and beautiful children. Then they went on a trip to Peru with their son. There, they met attractive, blonde Celeste Walker, whose husband, John was also a successful doctor. But after that trip, nothing was the same again for either couple, and all the dark hidden places in Debora and Michael’s marriage bubbled to the surface in a series of almost unbelievable horrors.

Bitter Harvest is the chronicle of this tragedy in the heartland of America, the true story of the disintegration of a marriage and its horrifying consequences. Rule takes us deep in the psyche of a killer whose behavior was so twisted and so evil that it defies belief. Gripping, powerful, and ultimately terrifying, Bitter Harvest is a vivid recreation of an unthinkable crime and a depiction of the unimagined depths of a darkness within the human spirit.

Copyright 1998 Ann Rule. All Rights Reserved
Performance copyright 1998 by Simon & Schuster Inc. All Rights Reserved

/Content /EditorialReview EditorialReview Source Amazon. com Review /Source Content Fans of Ann Rule will find much to relish in Bitter Harvest, the tale of a brilliant Kansas physician who holds herself together well enough to put on a decent show for the outside world, but in the heart of her horror struck family is a violent and baffling monster. She drinks, abuses drugs, spews invective, and even lights fires. At one point she learns from an Agatha Christie novel about a potent toxin contained in castor beans, and she starts poisoning her long suffering husband. Yet until the final fire that consumes two of her children, they continue to love her and defend her to attackers. Rule tells the story with flair, conveying all of the heady feelings involved, but still the book has a flaw: Rule fails to understand the main character. When a psychiatrist testifies that the doctor is at a younger age than a toddler in her ability to process or sustain emotions, Rule writes, ‘That was a shocker. Could a woman with an IQ of 165 and a biting, facetious wit, a woman who had zipped through college and medical school, be a child emotionally?’Yes, she could. Bitter Harvest would’ve been a stronger book if Rule had shown us how.

And Never Let Her Go

From America’s most celebrated true crime writer comes the heartbreaking real life drama of a doomed young woman hopelessly trapped in a web of sexual intrigue, political manipulation, and emotional deception by her charming and successful but ultimately deadly lover. The author of fifteen New York Times national bestsellers, Ann Rule, a former Seattle policewoman, has researched thousands of homicides and understands every facet of murder investigation. Now, in the most complex and shocking book of her long career, she delves into the motivation that drove a seemingly successful man to kill, and she explores heretofore unknown aspects of a fatal affair between a beautiful young woman who moved confidently in the heady world of the upper echelons of government and a widely admired millionaire attorney who was an immensely popular political figure. On June 27, 1996, thirty year old Anne Marie Fahey, who was the scheduling secretary for the governor of Delaware, had dinner with a man she had been having a secret affair with for more than two years. ‘Tommy’ Capano, forty seven, was perhaps the most politically powerful man in Wilmington. Son of a wealthy contractor, former state prosecutor, partner in a prestigious law firm, advisor to governors and mayors, Tom Capano had a soft spoken and considerate manner that endeared him to many. Although recently estranged from his wife, he was a devoted father to his four beautiful young daughters, the trusted son of his widowed mother, and the backbone of his extended family. But sometime after 9:15 that night when Anne Marie and Tom left a Philadelphia restaurant, something terrible happened to Anne Marie. It would be forty eight hours before her brothers and sisters realized that she had disappeared entirely. Ann Rule brilliantly traces the lives of both Fahey and Capano as she discloses the intimate details of their ill fated bonding. A vulnerable, trusting woman becomes spellbound by a charming, duplicitous married man, and what begins as a seemingly unremarkable affair is slowly transformed into an obsessive, convoluted, and deadly relationship. Through her impeccable research, Rule peels away layer after layer of deception to reveal a man who lived a secret life for decades, a man so greedy that he would sacrifice anyone to gain what he desired. One of his many mistresses all of whom were unknown to one another was Deborah MacIntyre, an attractive and wealthy member of one of Wilmington’s oldest families and an administrator of an elite private school. She, too, would become part of the mystery surrounding Anne Marie’s disappearance. As three prominent families are destroyed to satisfy one man’s jealous obsessions, this unfathomable tragedy becomes a tale that few would believe if it were presented as fiction. Shockingly, it is all true. Destined to become a classic,…
And Never Let Her Go is a riveting account of forbidden love and murder among the rich and powerful, and a chilling insight into the evil that sometimes hides behind even the most charming fa ade.

Every Breath You Take

If anything ever happens to me, promise me that you will see that there is an investigation…
. And find Ann Rule and ask her to write my story,’ Sheila Blackthorne Bellush told her sister after she divorced multimillionaire Allen Blackthorne. Now, in perhaps the first book ever written at a victim’s request, America’s Number One bestselling true crime writer, Ann Rule, untangles a horrific web of lies that culminated in Sheila’s savage murder more than ten years after she left Blackthorne. When beautiful, blond Sheila married the charming, handsome Blackthorne, she was convinced she had found her perfect soul mate, and helped him reach his goal of living the privileged life of the country club set. But behind Allen’s smooth facade, she discovered a violent, controlling sociopath a liar, a scam artist, a sexual deviant. When she finally fled with their two young daughters, she was skeletally thin, bruised, and beaten. Although Sheila recovered, remarried, and was starting a new life and family, she still felt she was doomed. Joyously pregnant, she and her new husband expecting quadruplets, Sheila still feared Blackthorne, who had sworn to her he would monitor her every move and ‘Every Breath You Take.’ And, in fact, Blackthorne inevitably tracked her down, as did her killer, who left her in a pool of blood marked by the tiny footprints of her two year old toddlers. The questions remained: Could the authorities ever link Sheila’s murder to Blackthorne himself? Was his true obsession high stakes golf and his extravagant pink mansion or was it to destroy Sheila? Following a trail of deception from Oregon and Hawaii to Texas and Florida, Ann Rule gained complete access to Sheila’s family, friends, and neighbors, as well as to the detectives and prosecutors on the case. With Every Breath You Take, Ann Rule has written a heart pounding account of obsession, revenge, and murder that will enthrall readers from beginning to end.

Without Pity

THEY KILL WITHOUT CONSCIENCE. ANN RULE PORTRAYS THEIR SHATTERING CRIMES Without Pity. In eight stunning Case Files volumes, from A Rose for Her Grave to the 1 blockbuster Last Dance, Last Chance, Ann Rule reigns as ‘America’s best true crime writer’ Kirkus Reviews. Now, she updates the most astonishing cases from that acclaimed series and presents shocking, all new true crime accounts in one riveting anthology. In every explosive chapter of Without Pity, Ann Rule deepens her unrelenting exploration of the evil that lies behind the perfect facades of heartless killers…
and the deadly compulsions of greed and power that shatter their outward trappings of material success. They are the admired, trusted neighbor; the affable family man; the sexy, charismatic lover; the high achieving professional. Perhaps most frightening of all is that they are heroes in their own minds. But when someone gets in the way of their deluded dreams, they are capable of deadly acts of violence with no remorse. Analyzing the true nature of the sociopathic mind in chilling detail, Ann Rule traces the murderous crimes of seemingly ordinary men killers who drew their unsuspecting victims into their twisted worlds with devastating consequences.

Heart Full of Lies

In perhaps the most profound character portrait she has ever drawn, America’s bestselling true crime writer, Ann Rule, asks, Can the female really be deadlier than the male? In Heart Full of Lies, she answers that question in one of her most intriguing tales ever a riveting story of seduction, betrayal, and murder. Liysa and Chris Northon seemed the epitome of idyllic lovers when they married on a moonlit beach in Hawaii. Their friends admired the romantic couple: Chris tall, athletic, handsome with a thatch of blond hair, a pilot for Hawaiian Airlines and Liysa attractive, charismatic, seductive, an acclaimed surf photographer, with a tanned, perfect body. Their son, Bjorn, looked just like his dad, and they were raising Liysa’s son by a previous marriage. They had beautiful homes on the mainland and in Hawaii. But it wasn’t long before Chris saw a side of Liysa that he hadn’t glimpsed before. Nothing was quite enough for her she wanted more money, more property, and a future that included fame as a Hollywood screenwriter. She complained to her closest friends that her husband was a heavy drinker who beat her. The marriage seemed to be unraveling, but Chris struggled to hold it together, afraid he’d be separated from Bjorn and from Liysa’s son, Papako. And then the worst happened. On a sunny morning in October 2000, Chris Northon lay dead in a sleeping bag at a campsite beside a pristine river, while his wife drove four hours to a friend’s house, sobbing inconsolably. She appeared to have been beaten, and had a black eye and bruises on her knee. Was Chris’s death a tragic accident or a deliberate homicide? Was Liysa involved? Questions arose that made Oregon State detectives suspicious, yet her family and friends stood staunchly by her, incredulous that anybody would ask such questions. Ann Rule became involved with the mystery of Chris’s death when one of his fellow pilots at Hawaiian Airlines contacted her, and only later did she learn that the ranking Oregon State Police investigator had thought of her to tell this bizarre story. A book that leads the reader from Hawaii to the Northwest to Hollywood, Heart Full of Lies is an extraordinary character study as well as a brilliant investigative report that will keep you enthralled to the very last page.

Green River, Running Red

In the most extraordinary book Ann Rule has ever undertaken, America’s master of true crime has spent more than two decades researching the story of the Green River Killer, who murdered more than forty nine young women. The quest to discover the most prolific serial killer in American history has been an intimate part of Ann Rule’s life, with some of the corpses found only a mile or so from where she lived and raised her own daughters. She did not know the killer, but he apparently knew her and attended many of her book signings. For twenty one years, the killer carried out his self described ‘career’ as a killing machine, ridding the world of women he considered evil. His eerie ability to lure his victims to their deaths and hide their bodies made him far more dangerous than any infamous multiple murderer in the annals of crime. A few men including a law student, a truck painter, and a taxi driver eventually emerged as the prime suspects among an unprecedented forty thousand scrutinized by the Green River Task Force. Still, there was no physical evidence linking any of them to the murders until 2001, when investigators used a new DNA process on a saliva sample they had preserved since 1987, with stunning results. Ann Rule has followed the case since July 1982, when the first body that of teenager Wendy Lee Coffield was found in the Green River, snagged on pilings under a bridge. Rule has compiled voluminous files, working through an incredible 95,000 pages of official police records, transcripts, photographs, and maps, winnowing out the chaff and identifying what is truly important. Over the years, she gained unparalleled access to all the key players from King County Sheriff Dave Reichert to those close to the killer and his victims. When finally apprehended and convicted, the killer made a detailed confession of his twisted sexual obsessions that will shock even the most jaded reader. Green River, Running Red is a harrowing account of a modern monster, a killer who walked among us undetected. It is also the story of his quarry of who these young girls were, and who they might have become. A chilling look at the darkest side of human nature, this is the most important and most personal book of Ann Rule’s long career.

Too Late to Say Goodbye

Jenn Corbin, a lovely, slim, brown eyed blonde, appeared to have it all: two dear little boys, a posh home in one of the upscale suburbs of Atlanta, expensive cars, a plush houseboat, and a husband Dr. Bart Corbin, a successful dentist who was tall, handsome, and brilliant. But gradually their seemingly idyllic life together began to crumble. There was talk of seeing a marriage counselor. Bart was distraught; Jenn seemed disenchanted. She needed to reach out to someone she could confide in beyond her mother and her sisters. Then, just a few weeks before Christmas 2004, Jenn was found dead with a bullet in her head, a revolver beside her. From the position of the body her death appeared to be a suicide. But Gwinnett County detective Marcus Head was not totally convinced, nor was Jenn’s family, who could not believe she would take her own life. And how was this death related to another apparent suicide fourteen years earlier that of Dorothy ‘Dolly’ Hearn, a spectacularly beautiful dental student? A star athlete and homecoming queen in high school, Dolly later dated Bart Corbin in dental school. Was there a connection, or was the answer to be found in a secret even dangerous relationship Jenn Corbin was having outside her marriage? For ‘Too Late to Say Goodbye,’ Ann Rule has interviewed virtually everyone in any way related to the story the victims’ families, police investigators, prosecutors, and sources from Georgia to Australia to uncover the truth behind the headlines of these two sensational deaths. What emerges is an incredible tale of jealous rage; of stunning circumstantial and physical evidence that runs from the steamy to the macabre toalmost unheard of forensic techniques; and of a tragic irony a fateful discovery that motivated the killing. The definitive unraveling of one of the strangest murder investigations of our time, ‘Too Late to Say Goodbye‘ is perhaps the finest achievement of a truly great writer’s career.

In the Still of the Night

FROM TRUE CRIME LEGEND ANN RULE comes this riveting story of a young woman whose life ended too soon and a determined mother’s eleven year crusade to clear her daughter s name. It was nine days before Christmas 1998, and thirty two year old Ronda Reynolds was getting ready to travel from Seattle to Spokane to visit her mother and brother and grandmother before the holidays. Ronda s second marriage was dissolving after less than a year, her career as a pioneering female Washington State Trooper had ended, but she was optimistic about starting over again. ‘I m actually looking forward to getting on with my life,’ she told her mother earlier the night before. ‘I just need a few days with you guys.’ Barb Thompson, Ronda s mother, who had met her daughter s second husband only once before, was just happy that Ronda was coming home. At 6:20 that morning, Ron Reynolds called 911 and told the dispatcher his wife was dead. She had committed suicide, he said, although he hadn t heard the gunshot and he didn t know if she had a pulse. EMTs arrived, detectives arrived, the coroner s deputy arrived, and a postmortem was conducted. Lewis County Coroner Terry Wilson, who neither visited the death scene nor attended the autopsy, declared the manner of Ronda s death as ‘undetermined.’ Over the next eleven years, Coroner Wilson would change that manner of death from ‘undetermined’ to ‘suicide,’ back to ‘undetermined’ and then back to ‘suicide’ again. But Barb Thompson never for one moment believed her daughter committed suicide. Neither did Detective Jerry Berry or ballistics expert Marty Hayes or attorney Royce Ferguson or dozens of Ronda s friends. For eleven grueling years, through the ups and downs of the legal system and its endless delays, these people and others helped Barb Thompson fight to strike that painful word from her daughter s death certificate. On November 9, 2009, a precedent setting hearing was held to determine whether Coroner Wilson s office had been derelict in its duty in investigating the death of Ronda Reynolds. Veteran true crime writer Ann Rule was present at that hearing, hoping to unbraid the tangled strands of conflicting statements and mishandled evidence and present all sides of this haunting case and to determine, perhaps, what happened to Ronda Reynolds, in the chill still of that tragic December night.

The Plot Thickens (With: Janet Evanovich,Lawrence Block,Linda Fairstein,Nelson DeMille,Donald E Westlake,Mary Higgins Clark,Carol Higgins Clark,Nancy Pickard,Walter Mosley,Edna Buchanan)

Joining together for a good cause brings out the best in today’s top mystery and suspense writers! For this marvelously entertaining anthology, these outstanding contributors rose to a unique literary challenge: each penned a tale that ingeniously features a thick fog, a thick book, and a thick steak. The result is a collection of wonderfully imaginative tales that both chill the spine and warm the heart: proceeds from The Plot Thickens will help bring the gift of reading to millions of disadvantaged Americans.

Fearless Jones (By:Walter Mosley)

Penzler Pick, June 2001: Those of us who have been waiting for Walter Mosley to return to mystery writing and there are many of us have cause to rejoice. Not only has Mosley written a mystery, he is introducing a new character who could turn out to be as popular as Easy Rawlins. Fearless Jones has a lot in common with Easy, but he also has some characteristics reminiscent of Socrates Fortlow, the ‘hero’ of Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned. When the story begins, the reader is transported to the Los Angeles of the 1950s, a dangerous place and time for a black man. But Paris Minton seems to have beaten the odds. He owns a moderately successful and very satisfying business a used book store. He spends the time he’s not in the store scouring libraries for discarded books and selling them in just enough quantity to be independent and happy. Yes, he is visited on a regular basis by members of the LAPD who want him to prove to them that he did not steal the books, but that is a small price to pay for independence. Minton’s peaceful life is interrupted one day when a beautiful woman walks into his store and asks for the Reverend William Grove. In no time flat, Paris has been beaten into unconsciousness by a man following her and has been rewarded by the woman with sex. The lovely Elana Love is obviously trouble, but Paris jumps in feet first and, as a consequence, his store is burned to the ground. It is obviously time to call in Fearless Jones, a man well named. Jones is afraid of nothing, but there is a little matter to be taken care of before he can help. He’s in jail and Paris must raise bail to get him out. Once he does that, the pair embark on a wild ride through Los Angeles on behalf of Elana Love. As always, Mosley depicts the hard boiled L.A. in a powerful and distinctive way, and we can only hope that this is the first of a series. Otto Penzler

Fear Itself (By:Walter Mosley)

Paris Minton doesn’t want any trouble. He minds his used bookstore and his own business. But in 1950s Los Angeles, sometimes trouble finds him, no matter how hard he tries to avoid it. When the nephew of the wealthiest woman in L.A. is missing and wanted for murder, she has to get involved no matter if she can’t stand him. What will her church think? She hires Jefferson T. Hill, a former sheriff of Dawson, Texas, and a tough customer, to track him down and prove his innocence. When Hill goes missing too, she tricks his friend Fearless Jones and Paris Minton into picking up the case. Paris steps inside the world of the black bourgeoisie, and it turns out to be filled with deceit and corruption. It takes everything he has just to stay alive through a case filled with twists and turns and dead ends like he never imagined. Written with the voice and vision that have made Walter Mosley one of the most entertaining writers in America, FEAR ITSELF marks the return of a master at the top of his form.

Fear of the Dark (By:Walter Mosley)

Fearless Jones and Paris Minton, stars of the bestsellers Fearless Jones and Fear Itself, return in a fast paced thriller about family and revenge. For Paris Minton, a knock on his door is often the first sign of trouble. So when he finds his lowlife cousin, Ulysses S. Grant, or Useless, on the other side of his front door, Paris keeps it firmly closed. With family like Useless, who needs enemies? Yet trouble always finds an open window, and when Useless’s mother, Three Hearts, shows up to look for her son, Paris has no choice but to track down his wayward cousin. Turns out that Useless is involved in some high stakes blackmailing. Now, he and a briefcase full of money and incriminating photos are missing, and Paris is not the only one looking for him. Paris enlists the help of his invincible friend Fearless Jones, but mysterious women, desperate blackmail victims, and cheating business partners are all they encounter not to mention the dead bodies found along the way. With the sheer nerve plotting and brilliant characterizations that have made him one of the great stars of crime fiction, Fear of the Dark is masterful Mosley.

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