Spellbinding Tale of a Mother's Madness and Jealousy, a fall from grace.

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	• Bitter Harvest Ann Rule Pocket, 1999 - 496 pages average customer review:based on 173 reviews view larger image
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Non Stop Reading

I have every book written by Ann but unfortunately she can write them faster than I can read. I work a lot and have to fit reading in 10 minutes here or a whole hour there, so it usually takes me a couple of months to get a book read. I took Bitter Harvest on a cruise and could not put it down! The story is so sad, to think that a Mother could kill her own children to hold on to their Father in a failing marriage. Honey, when he doesn't love you, he doesn't love you, you can't make him through the children. This woman had so much intelligence and yet no common sense. Like I said the whole time I was on the cruise I didn't want to do anything but read--how can that be?? I loved my cruise but the book was one of Ann's best. All the time and research that is put into each and every book is evident!!

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A good read

I just finished re-reading this book, and went in search of additional info (my edition is several years old). It is a good book, in that it tells the basic tale. If Ann had been able to spend more time with Deborah Green, AND if she had been allowed to take notes or a recorder into her one interview, we perhaps would have a better picture of Deborah.
Incidently, some of the reviews talk about Ann being soft on Michael Faraar, Deb's now ex-husband. And several point out that her daughter still loves her. I didn't think that Mike got off soft--he committed adultery. But trying to portray one of the victims as a "bad guy" doesn't go oover well with the public/reader. And her daughter's love for her mother is normal. Ted Bundy's mother continued to love him even after he confessed. That is what family is supposed to do.

As for those who continue to believe Deborah is innocent, check out how many times she has changed her story. And if Prozac fogged her mind so she couldn't participate in her own defense, then all those people who take it and work for a living should be having problems too--and they don't. Of course, I suspect that Deborah's few "true believers" are mostly blood related, or deluded (keep in mind ted Bundy got love letters in prison). Read the book, check out her ever changing stories via newspaper articles.

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Spellbinding Tale of a Mother's Madness and Jealousy, a fall from grace.

I have to say that I was more interested in this book than usual because it happened here where I live. So I was familiar with some of the details involved that lead up to the tragedy that builds throughout the book.

To be sure, there are multiple victims in the book. The first victim appears to be Deborah Greene's own husband, Dr. Mike Farrar who by all accounts had a glimpse of what hell must be like. Both he and his wife were doctor's in the Metropolitan Area of Kansas City and lived in Prairie Village, Kansas in an affluent neighborhood of mostly peaceful homes. They had moved there after a fire destroyed their previous home. The couple had separated but after the fire in their first home it appears he was motivated to move back to be with his wife and children once again, a grave mistake on his part, but also an indicator of the kind of man he was. He loved his children deeply and he apparently tried to love his wife as well.

At any rate, after moving back home again it did not take too long for their family life to deteriorate once again, propelled forward by Deborah's apparent insecurity, jealousy and delusions. If Mike Farrar had been able to see into the future and recognize the consequences of his well-meaning actions he surely would never have returned.

It seems that he became ill and that for quite some time the cause of his illness escaped the physicians who treated him. He wife Deborah witnessed his illness and one has to wonder if she felt pity for him or only vengeance. I think it must have been vengeance because he had come so close to death yet miraculously managed to pull through and had barely been returned to his home to continue his recovery when he again became ill even before he had a chance to appreciate and enjoy his return home. Unsure exactly what is going on that causes such illness it is shocking to discover that the reason for his illness (which included extreme bouts of dysentery and vomiting) is that he was being poisoned with Ricin, a substance that comes from the castor bean seeds his wife acquired at a garden center in a neighboring suburb. It is amazing where the final proof comes from as to her possession and acquisition of the toxic substance comes from.

I know from seeing interviews with Dr. Mike Greene that, at least according to him, he will have to live with the effects of his poisoning for the rest of his life and can never be sure that he will not be stricken again with its toxic side-effects. one cannot help but be sympathetic for him, and again wonder how anyone could watch him be so ill, someone who purportedly loved him, knowing all the while that it was she who caused him such devastation. He had to have several brain surgeries to try to alleviate some of the damage and he has no guarantees that he will not need it again in the future. If one wanted to torture their spouse then Deborah Greene did an excellent job.

The reader is left spell-bound, waiting for the time when his treating physicians will be able to connect the dots that point to his assailant. But it is in time to save all but one of his children from falling victim to the second part of his wife's madness.

One cannot help but feel sad for the victims. If I was supposed to feel sorry for Deborah Greene I failed miserably. I would have found at difficult at best to feel sympathy but when I heard on the local news that years after her conviction she is attempting to renege on her confession and save herself from a life behind bars forever.

It must have been hard for Dr. Farrar to explain to his remaining daughter the scope of the sad events. One's mind rails against believing that a mother could be responsible for so much sadness.

Through fortuitous events Deborah was discovered and an end put to her reign of terror but not before he a holocaust on a personal level envelopes her children and her husband.

The reader will be mesermerized by the complexity a of the evidence and thankful that it comes out but as always, sad that the victims won't be there to witness their tormentor losing all that she has had to become a nothing behind bars. Children have a remarkable ability to love and forgive, I wonder if they could have, the two who perished. And I wonder how the surviving daughter feels now but of course that is a private matter that perhaps will never be answered.

Anne Rule does an excelent job secribing the sometimes baffling and confusing tale and madness. She has no lost her touch on this book and her followers will not be disappointed. She did an excellent job getting "inside" the story and inside the head of a madwoman who her wealth and privilege and family for nothing.

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Great book!

An excellent book! Have never read an Ann Rule book I didn't like!

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

GIFTED WITH A BRILLIANT MIND, BLESSED WITH A BEAUTIFUL FAMILY -- AND CURSED WITH A DESTRUCTIVE MADNESS

In this harrowing New York Times bestseller, Ann Rule is at her masterful best as she winnows horrific truths from the ashes of what seemed like paradise in Prairie Village, Kansas. Rule probes the case of Debora Green, a doctor and a loving mother who seemed to epitomize the dreams of the American heartland. A small-town girl with a genius IQ, she achieved an enviable life: her own medical practice, a handsome physician husband, three perfect children, and an opulent home in an exclusive Kansas City suburb. But when a raging fire destroyed that home and took two lives, the trail of clues led investigators to a stunning conclusion. Piece by piece, Ann Rule digs beneath this placid Midwestern facade to unveil a disturbing portrait of strangely troubled marriages, infidelity, desperation, suicide, and escalating acts of revenge that forever changed dozens of lives.

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