Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder
And Other True Cases
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4.6 • 9 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
#1 New York Times bestselling author and true crime icon Ann Rule explores several crimes filled with mysterious twists and turns in this unputdownable entry in the Ann Rule’s Crime Files series.
Some murder cases reveal the answers quickly and with relative ease. But sometimes, the case is an intractable puzzle, filled with smoke and mirrors. The “country’s premier true crime author” (Library Journal) reveals several such cat-and-mouse cases here.
First, the ideal family is targeted for death by the least likely enemy. In another case, 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. There’s also the true story of a modest preacher’s wife confessing to shooting her husband after an argument but there’s more to her shattering story than meets the eye. These and other true crime tales are analyzed with Ann Rule’s “extraordinary” (The New York Times) compassion and objectivity in this collection.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestseller Rule looks at marriages gone bad in her latest volume of true-crime case files. Stories include "The Minister's Wife," about a woman convicted of shooting her husband in 2006, and "The Painter's Wife," an amazing tale of two strangers kidnapped by a hardened criminal. The bulk of the book is taken up by "The Deputy's Wife," the sad tale of a once-promising young police officer, Bill Jensen, who eventually took out a contract on his own family. It's a good yarn, full of horrifying twists, but at 150 pages can get repetitive. For those not used to it, Rule's fondness for potboiler prose-"Their marriage had spun like a colorful top...Now as it wound down slower and slower, Sue could see the pattern of lies"-can also annoy. Many of the seven cases here are gruesome but unmemorable, perhaps the inevitable result of Rule's prodigious output.
