Review by Booklist Review
This is Rule's twenty-fourth true-crime book in a successful sweep that started with her brilliant take on serial killer Ted Bundy, the man she worked next to at a Seattle crisis center. Rule's true-crime books are notable for their in-depth forensics, perceptive trial coverage (often), and keen psychological insight (always). Her latest extends an analogy she has often used: how an investigation into homicide takes, basically, a stick drawing of a person, the victim, and with each piece of evidence and parts of interviews, transforms the stick figure into a rounded, complex human being whose life holds the key to his or her death. In 2003, a man's body was discovered in a car parked in front of a cabin on Whidbey Island, Washington. The victim, Russel Douglas, had a single gunshot wound to his head. The investigation took years to complete (it took a decade to come to trial) and wound through seven states and Mexico. Rule is at her best in tracing Douglas' frantic, depression-fueled changes in the years preceding his murder. This time Rule occasionally becomes tedious in her detailed coverage of every phase of the investigation and trial, using her remarkable access to sources to deliver, finally, too much information. Still, this account delivers quite a punch in its final revelations.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
In this convoluted narrative, Rule (The Stranger Beside Me) follows the case of former beauty pageant queen Peggy Sue Thomas and her then-husband Jim Huden. The couple were convicted ten years after the fact for the murder of Russel Douglas, who was found shot to death in his car on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound. Although narrator Anne Twomey's voice is very pleasant, there is no narrative momentum behind this story-listeners are left with little understanding of why the crime was committed. The couple did not benefit financially from the murder; their only connection was that Peggy Sue worked in a hair salon with Russ's wife, Brenna. The speculations about possible motives are less than convincing, and motiveless murders do not make for a compelling story. VERDICT Libraries can pass on this one.-Victoria A. Caplinger, NoveList, Durham, NC (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The reigning true-crime queen dips into the darker side of love and mayhem in her latest microscopic take on homicide. The day after Christmas 2003, Russ Douglas, a father of two who was separated from his hairdresser wife, Brenna, was found dead from a single gunshot wound to the head in his car on Whidbey Island, Wash. But investigators couldn't find the gun, which made suicide an unlikely conclusion. In addition, Douglas' widow didn't seem too concerned with her husband's death. After digging around in Douglas' past, police found many contradictions. Eventually, their investigation led to an informant who tied individuals into the case who weren't even on police radar at the beginning. Rule (Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors, 2012, etc.) has written many successful true-crime books and has a following that is both devoted and legion. But in the past decade, the writer, who calls the Northwest U.S. home, has fished in her own waters so much that many of the quasi-local cases she covers are less than extraordinary. Although it received national publicity, the Whidbey case isn't particularly compelling, and the investigation, while dogged, isn't brilliant. While the crime's particulars might be fascinating to Whidbey residents and friends of the participants, in Rule's hands, they're underwhelming and dull. The author includes every minute case detail, including false leads, and a large portion of the book is based on background information that has little to do with the actual homicide--including a detailed description of the death of one of the participants' stepmothers, who died many years before the participant's birth. Rule's die-hard fans may be enamored, but other true-crime fans won't find much more than a yawn lurking between these pages.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
