Ann Rule, The Queen of True Crime October 22, 1935 - July 26, 2015

Ann Rule may be best known for her masterpiece The Stranger Beside Me which detailed her friendship with infamous serial killer Ted Bundy. Rule was a crime writer who got her start with True Detective magazine under the pen name Andy Stack.

Born Ann Rae Stackhouse, Ann Rule grew up among family members involved in law enforcement and even joined the Seattle Police Department, but left after failing an eye exam. She studied creative writing, abnormal psychology, and criminal justice, an education that made her true crime books exceptionally substantial and riveting. At the height of her career, Rule produced up to two books a year.

True crime aficionados will miss her contributions, but can be consoled by re-reading her books.

Practice To Deceive
Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors: And Other True Cases
But I Trusted You: And Other True Cases  
Mortal Danger
Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder: And Other True Cases 

In the Still of the Night: The Strange Death of Ronda Reynolds and Her Mother's Unceasing Quest For the Truth

Green River, Running Red: The Real Story of the Green River Killer, America's Deadliest Serial Murderer
Bitter Harvest: A Woman's Fury, A Mother's Sacrifice

ABC Library also has the following true crime books to give you chills: 

Law and Disorder: The Legendary FBI Profiler's Relentless Pursuit of Justice by John Douglas 
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
While They Slept: An Inquiry Into the Murder Of a Family by Kathryn Harrison 
The Innocent Man by John Grisham
The Devil's Knot by Mara Leveritt 
Every Contact Leaves a Trace: Crime Scene Experts Talk About Their Work From Discovery Through Verdict by Connie Fletcher 
For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Chicago by Simon Baatz

Authors Affected by True Crime

Anne Perry's first book The Cater Street Hangman was first published in 1979.  Since then she has published more than 40 books, most recently Blind Justice, the latest in her William Monk series.  She won the Edgar award in 2000, and has been called one of the 20th century's "Masters in Crime".  However, in 1954, when she was 15, she was tried and convicted of the murder of her best friend's mother. 

At the time Anne Perry was known as Juliet Hulme, and she was living in New Zealand, with her British parents.  When they told her they were sending her to stay with relatives in South Africa, she and her friend Pauline Parker hatched a plot to murder Pauline's mother, hoping to be able to live with each other.  Hulme served five years in prison for her role in the murder, and when she was released she set off for a new life in England.  She worked as a flight attendent, became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and changed her name.  The story of the horrifying murder, and her relationship with Pauline Parker, is the subject of a book released earlier this year called Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century by Peter Graham.  It was also the inspiration for Peter Jackson's 1994 film Heavenly Creatures which features Kate Winslet in her first movie role. 

Anne Perry is not the only author to have headlines take over her personal life.  In December of 1926 British author Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days, leading to a country wide manhunt.  She was eventually found unharmed, living in a spa hotel under a false name.  To this day there are many theories as to why exactly she vanished, and why she did not come forward when she heard of her own disappearance.  Although she does not address this in An Autobiography, other writers have discussed it in other biographies such as Agatha Christie: A Biography by Janet Morgan.

Lois Duncan is best known for writing suspense novels for young adults such as I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Killing Mr. Griffin.  In 1989 suspense came into her own life when her daughter, Kaitlyn, was found in her car, killed by a gunshot wound to the head.  Lois and her family were living in Albuquerque at the time, and to this day, the killer has never been found.  Her book, Who Killed My Daughter? was written to encourage informants to come forward, and was featured prominently in the media at the time of its publishing. 

James Ellroy has become most famous for his books LA Confidential, and The Black Dahlia, and the movies they inspired.  In 1996 he published My Dark Places: An LA Crime Noir which detailed the murder of his mother which had happened when he was ten years old.  The crime was never solved, and for years Ellroy investigated her murder on his own without any results. 

Some of these backstories to author's lives can be something interesting to keep in mind while reading their books.

True Crime

This is an opportunity to explore our history and to gain insight into ourselves. And therein lies the answer to our riddle: true crime appeals to us not because of its crimes, but because of its truths.
~from The Weekly Lizard, "Why We Love to Read True Crime"

I think that people feel extraordinarily vulnerable in this society and this culture. And one of the reasons that people are so interested in crime true and imagined is they're - it's something they're worried about. It's something they're thinking about. It's something that they want to solve. They want to know: Could that happen to me? And they want to know: How can I make it so it doesn't happen to me?
~Walter Mosley, in an interview with NPR


Why do we read true crime?  Here at abcreads, we're not sure.  But true crime's enduring popularity has not abated since the days of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (considered by many critics to be a pioneering work of the true crime genre). Here's a list of some popular true crime titles that you might want to check out, or let us know in the comments your favorite true crime reads.


Psycho USA by Harold Schechter

The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession by David Grenn

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story by John Berendt

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale

Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China by Paul French

People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo-- and the Evil that Swallowed Her Up by Richard Lloyd Parry

Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century by Peter Graham

Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors and Other True Cases by Ann Rule


For more true crime titles, try a keyword search of "True crime", or a subject search using "Crime", "Serial murders", or "Forensic Science".

Links

"10 True Crime Books You Won't Be Able to Put Down"