A Book Worth Waiting For...

books:


	• Green River, Running Red: The Real Story of the Green River Killer - America's Deadliest Serial Murderer Ann Rule Thorndike Press, 2005 - 888 pages average customer review:based on 109 reviews view larger image
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Very interesting

This novel about the green river serial killer was both informative and an interesting read. Ann Rule is a master at writing crime novels and this book is no exception. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in crime or is considering going into some sort of law enforcement profession. =]

A Book Worth Waiting For...

Unlike some of the previous reviewers, I found this book to be both interesting and engaging. If you have followed Ann Rule's work over the years, you know she has been waiting for (and working on) this book but was unable to do so because the killer had not yet been caught. I've read other books on the GRK and found this one to be the perfect book 'end' to the story.
I find it refreshing that she focused on the victims, who were for the most part, faceless "hookers" to much of the population while these crimes were happening. I also liked the way the narrative went from crime to killer; weaving time together for the reader. I wanted to read this book precisely because Ms Rule was so involved. I enjoyed the fact that she'd been to the scenes and met the key players. As a true crime reader, I put this near the top of my list.

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Ann Rule does it Again

If anyone wants "gore" or full focus on the killer then maybe this book is not for them. Probably this was one Ms Rules most difficult books to write & I read somewhere that it maybe some time before she returns full focus on serial killers. Finally here we see more focus on the victims rather than on the killer, who they were, their hopes & dreams, the families that were left behind. This killer has already had the spotlight focused on him for too long & thank goodness someone has thought to remember his victims were real life people and does not focus only on their pain & terror (and by reading some other reviews people bought the book only for that). A great read from start to finish and I would reccomend it to anyone

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In the River

Given that she had twenty years to compile her research, Ann Rule had an opportunity to produce the definitive book about the Green River Killer. While other books on the topic preceded this book in print, Rule waited for the Green River Killer to be identified and convicted before publishing. Rule wanted to be thorough, and perhaps she was too thorough.

With a crime spree that began in the early 1980's, it was not until 2001 and major breakthroughs in DNA technology that they were able to arrest Gary Ridgway. A very plain man, he did not fit the image of a monster that most people expected of the killer. Having a bizzare childhood and poor social relationships with others would seem to send signals that there was a problem. Yet Gary Ridgway always seemed to be flying under the radar.

In the early stages of writing this book, Rule decided to recognize each victim as a person individually. While I think this was the right thing to do, a few paragraphs about each of the 48 victims seemed out of place. Not only did it slow the pace of the book, but the brevity or the short passages made them lack any genuine insight into the lives of the victims. Short of making the book 900 pages, I am not sure how Rule could have avoided this quandry.

While many of Rule's books have never solicited my interest, I have enjoyed some of the more focused books that she has written such as "Small Sacrifices" and "I-5 Killer". This does not rank among Rule's better works as it seems to be lacking in vision and occasionally Rule's placing herself in the story seems to scream for self-importance. In reality, the book is about the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway. That is what the description of the book says, not the short biographies of the Green River Killer's victims or Ann Rule's biography.

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reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

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