books:

	• Bitter Harvest Ann Rule Pocket, 1999 - 496 pages average customer review:based on 173 reviews view larger image
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Although I don't believe he deserved to be poisoned or his kids murdered, he is not a saint. He seemed more attracted to Debora Green's sports car and her income as a doctor than to her. He comes off as sex-obsessed (he USED "Celeste Walker", I think), and his need for "order" struck me as pathetically anal! He expected an antiseptically neat home with three children around.

Moreover, an adulterer is far from a paragon of virtue. Sorry, but Farrar just struck me as a guy who thinks women (wives or girlfriends) are there to make HIS life wonderful.

That said, Ann Rule did her usual job of telling the story and trying to get a handle on what makes someone like Debora Jones Green tick. I think Green was molested as a child, even though she continues to insist her childhood was idyllic. I guess we will never know.

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Ann Rule writes brilliantly on an unremarkable subject..

Bitter Harvest is the true story of a very disturbed woman accused of setting her home alight while her children sleep inside, and of attempting to poison her husband. True to form, Ann Rule expertly "peels the onion" of this story starting with a thorough examination of this woman's background, her family life, the events leading up to the tragedy, the tragedy itself, the trial, and finally the outcome of the trial. But surprisingly this winning formula which worked so well in her other books failed to ignite this reader. Why?...

Ann Rule's books succeed when the main villian is either a dangerous, violent psychopath (as in her wonderful Stranger Beside Me), or a manipulative, evil yet clever monster who almost gets away with murder (as in her superb If You Really Loved Me). But in Bitter Harvest the villian is just a very depressed, somewhat deranged substance abuser who ultimately commits an irrational crime which she (and her family) will always regret. Interesting yet not exactly enthralling stuff.

Bottom line: expertly written, balanced journalism by Ann Rule. Too bad she didn't select a better true crime story to write about.

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Well-Written But Ultimately Unsatisfying

Although Anne Rules wrote well enough to keep me reading, I was disappointed with the book's progression. A woman commits arson, purposefully killing two of her three children and their pets, but the reason for her actions are left unstated. This is one story that Rule should have dropped; she admits that no one connected with the crime or family wanted to talk to her (except a few of the key players), leaving her bereft of the deep material she usually presents in her work. Tantalizing hints of psychological abuse and personality disorder are dangled before us, though never validated or discounted. Read "Small Sacrifices" or "And Never Let Her Go", for the true genius of Anne Rule.

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