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Deadly Deception
Romance seemed unlikely for Brenda Gunn, a shy and insecure health care worker living outside Kansas City. Then she met Glen Brumbaugh, a charmer who showered her with attention and promised a fairy tale marriage. It seemed too good to be true.
Madly in love, she overlooked the stunning news that he was a felon, fresh from a twelve-year prison stint. Even after barely surviving an inexplicable fire, and a bizarre hit-and-run accident, Brenda remained cautiously loyal to the man she married-until one dark night.
Brenda discovered that her husband was having an affair with her best friend. Together they'd spun an elaborate plan for murder. The prize was Brenda's million-dollar-insurance policy. Without proof, no one could help her.
With no one left to trust, Brenda played a deadly game of her own. She bought a gun and matched devious cunning with breathtaking courage. When it ended, one player would vanish. One would die in a pool of blood, and one would survive to expose the intimate evils at the heart of true love...
Madly in love, she overlooked the stunning news that he was a felon, fresh from a twelve-year prison stint. Even after barely surviving an inexplicable fire, and a bizarre hit-and-run accident, Brenda remained cautiously loyal to the man she married-until one dark night.
Brenda discovered that her husband was having an affair with her best friend. Together they'd spun an elaborate plan for murder. The prize was Brenda's million-dollar-insurance policy. Without proof, no one could help her.
With no one left to trust, Brenda played a deadly game of her own. She bought a gun and matched devious cunning with breathtaking courage. When it ended, one player would vanish. One would die in a pool of blood, and one would survive to expose the intimate evils at the heart of true love...
- GenresTrue CrimeNonfiction
304 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published November 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 8, 2019
This was a very different sort of book.
Occasionally, I like a true crime book. But this book was actually written by the VICTIM..who survived. That is quite different and not something you see every day. I really wanted to read it.
So Brenda Gunn is quite a strong woman. She married a man she knew very little about in reality. But she loved him. It turned out he was, of coarse, not at all as he said he was the abuse he heaps on Brenda is painful to read about.
He also tries to kill her several times, culminating in a scene at Brenda's house where she to hide..literally..for her life.
The ending is high intensity scary, all the more because this isn't fiction. He literally stalks her around her own house before SHE winds up killing HIM. There was a certain police officer who did not believe her story that her husband had tried to kill her several times. This however was proven and no charges were filed.
This book really makes you think about relationships and how well you know anyone. At the same time, Brenda's strength..how she fond the will and determination to keep herself alive..was something else again. Very empowering to read about.
My only quibble was that much was left up in the air about the girlfriend. Why didn't the police prosecute her? Or did they? I was very confused on that and also did not like that there is many inner monologes and I do not know how they could be accurate as nobody can really know what another person is thinking.
Still worth reading. 3.5 stars for a really different kind of book.
Occasionally, I like a true crime book. But this book was actually written by the VICTIM..who survived. That is quite different and not something you see every day. I really wanted to read it.
So Brenda Gunn is quite a strong woman. She married a man she knew very little about in reality. But she loved him. It turned out he was, of coarse, not at all as he said he was the abuse he heaps on Brenda is painful to read about.
He also tries to kill her several times, culminating in a scene at Brenda's house where she to hide..literally..for her life.
The ending is high intensity scary, all the more because this isn't fiction. He literally stalks her around her own house before SHE winds up killing HIM. There was a certain police officer who did not believe her story that her husband had tried to kill her several times. This however was proven and no charges were filed.
This book really makes you think about relationships and how well you know anyone. At the same time, Brenda's strength..how she fond the will and determination to keep herself alive..was something else again. Very empowering to read about.
My only quibble was that much was left up in the air about the girlfriend. Why didn't the police prosecute her? Or did they? I was very confused on that and also did not like that there is many inner monologes and I do not know how they could be accurate as nobody can really know what another person is thinking.
Still worth reading. 3.5 stars for a really different kind of book.
November 29, 2011
I don't remember ever reading a t.c. written by the would-be victim before. The only story that comes close, that I remember, is a story whose title I can't remember that a women from here in Delaware wrote after being abducted and raped and her husband shot dead in her home. But to me that was more memoir than t.c. so it's different.
I can distinctly remember thinking before that I wouldn't mind reading a t.c. by someone intimately involved with the crime. Be careful what you wish for right?
What I didn't think about was, for one, what's stopping that person from putting their own twist on things? Anyone could do so of course by what reason would a stranger have to do that? Most likely none.
I couldn't shake the feeling that some of the conversations replied here were made up. I don't feel comfortable even saying that because after all, there's no way for me to know, but it's a feeling I got and couldn't get rid of. I didn't like it.
I also couldn't believe how utterly naive this woman was/is. She meets a man, total stranger, married him after two months and is surprised when problems arise? What world did she live in where this usually works?
The man had never even been inside her home until AFTER they were married. How awkward! She had no idea he's committed crimes, no idea he'd been convicted, no idea he'd served 12 years in prison, no idea about anything at all.
This woman had oh so many clues that there was something wrong here, not only with his disgusting p.o.s. husband but her disgusting p.o.s. "best friend" also. She was walked all over by the both of them and put up with it. Why? To keep them in her life. And guess what? That almost cost her own life. And she never thought it would come to that so let that serve as a lesson to all the other women out there who so badly need a man that they're willing to take whatever's dished out to them.
She was almost killed a number of times and she even started realizing something was wrong toward the end there, but still debated with herself and kept denying it could be him doing these things.
Some of the instances she describes seemed off. I have no better way of putting it. One example is around page 225 when Glen is in a dark garage on their property and the author just overhear loud voices between two men. Going out to look she sees her husbands friend leaving so she goes into the - dark - garage (this is after almost being killed in inexplicable accidents numerous times and receiving more than plenty of clues her husband isn't what she thought) and finds him there, with a gun, presumably beat up. What does she do when he repeatedly tells her to leave him alone? She supposedly tells him, "Glen, I'm not going to leave you here with that gun, not in your mood. You'll have to kill me first."
Now listen, I get the first sentence. Maybe. I think. Well, not really but I'll accept it anyway because the second sentence is more interesting anyway. So, she tells him he'll "have to kill" her first. Hmmmmmm.... Is that not strange to say after everything that's happened? If it weren't so damned sad it'd be funny.
One small example of how she immediately shed her beliefs for him was her love for animals. She adopted and raised many animals, including exotic animals. (Indeed, one of the ways she could have died was when Glenn released her mountain lion without her knowledge after riling him up and beating it on the head with a stick. Nice guy. I wish it would have ate him.)
Yet she allows Glenn to hunt and hang stuffed animal carcasses on the walls in her home. Fricking disgusting. What's more disgusting is that the only reason she allowed this was to appease that asshole. Women need to wake the fuck up.
Oh, one other small thing that bothered me is shallow but whatever. Call me shallow. They say beauty if in the eye of the beholder. That has never been more true. Each and every time this woman called this man a "hunk" or said how women "wanted him" or how he was so "hot" I turned to his pictures and just stared. I'm honestly not sure if it's the same person. All I see is a pervy looking guy who looks like his skin hasn't seen water in months. Where is the hotness? The hunkiness? I get that everyone has different taste but damn. Even when I don't find a guy hot myself I'm able to look objectively and at least see he's not fugly. This man was fugly - FUG-LY. Ewww.
Well, anyway, Gunn's writing isn't particularly bad and I don't think I saw too many editing mistakes. I wouldn't send anyone out of their way to grab this though.
I'm pleased Gunn disposed of this trash but I wish I was able to say she also kept herself alive. I can't say that because she didn't. Luck kept her alive and nothing more. Hopefully she'll be more attentive in the future.
I can distinctly remember thinking before that I wouldn't mind reading a t.c. by someone intimately involved with the crime. Be careful what you wish for right?
What I didn't think about was, for one, what's stopping that person from putting their own twist on things? Anyone could do so of course by what reason would a stranger have to do that? Most likely none.
I couldn't shake the feeling that some of the conversations replied here were made up. I don't feel comfortable even saying that because after all, there's no way for me to know, but it's a feeling I got and couldn't get rid of. I didn't like it.
I also couldn't believe how utterly naive this woman was/is. She meets a man, total stranger, married him after two months and is surprised when problems arise? What world did she live in where this usually works?
The man had never even been inside her home until AFTER they were married. How awkward! She had no idea he's committed crimes, no idea he'd been convicted, no idea he'd served 12 years in prison, no idea about anything at all.
This woman had oh so many clues that there was something wrong here, not only with his disgusting p.o.s. husband but her disgusting p.o.s. "best friend" also. She was walked all over by the both of them and put up with it. Why? To keep them in her life. And guess what? That almost cost her own life. And she never thought it would come to that so let that serve as a lesson to all the other women out there who so badly need a man that they're willing to take whatever's dished out to them.
She was almost killed a number of times and she even started realizing something was wrong toward the end there, but still debated with herself and kept denying it could be him doing these things.
Some of the instances she describes seemed off. I have no better way of putting it. One example is around page 225 when Glen is in a dark garage on their property and the author just overhear loud voices between two men. Going out to look she sees her husbands friend leaving so she goes into the - dark - garage (this is after almost being killed in inexplicable accidents numerous times and receiving more than plenty of clues her husband isn't what she thought) and finds him there, with a gun, presumably beat up. What does she do when he repeatedly tells her to leave him alone? She supposedly tells him, "Glen, I'm not going to leave you here with that gun, not in your mood. You'll have to kill me first."
Now listen, I get the first sentence. Maybe. I think. Well, not really but I'll accept it anyway because the second sentence is more interesting anyway. So, she tells him he'll "have to kill" her first. Hmmmmmm.... Is that not strange to say after everything that's happened? If it weren't so damned sad it'd be funny.
One small example of how she immediately shed her beliefs for him was her love for animals. She adopted and raised many animals, including exotic animals. (Indeed, one of the ways she could have died was when Glenn released her mountain lion without her knowledge after riling him up and beating it on the head with a stick. Nice guy. I wish it would have ate him.)
Yet she allows Glenn to hunt and hang stuffed animal carcasses on the walls in her home. Fricking disgusting. What's more disgusting is that the only reason she allowed this was to appease that asshole. Women need to wake the fuck up.
Oh, one other small thing that bothered me is shallow but whatever. Call me shallow. They say beauty if in the eye of the beholder. That has never been more true. Each and every time this woman called this man a "hunk" or said how women "wanted him" or how he was so "hot" I turned to his pictures and just stared. I'm honestly not sure if it's the same person. All I see is a pervy looking guy who looks like his skin hasn't seen water in months. Where is the hotness? The hunkiness? I get that everyone has different taste but damn. Even when I don't find a guy hot myself I'm able to look objectively and at least see he's not fugly. This man was fugly - FUG-LY. Ewww.
Well, anyway, Gunn's writing isn't particularly bad and I don't think I saw too many editing mistakes. I wouldn't send anyone out of their way to grab this though.
I'm pleased Gunn disposed of this trash but I wish I was able to say she also kept herself alive. I can't say that because she didn't. Luck kept her alive and nothing more. Hopefully she'll be more attentive in the future.
December 9, 2016
This book is very unique in the sense that this isn't written by an author about a victim/killer, but by a would-be victim.
It was well written and was easy to follow but I honestly couldn't help but feel like there was something fake about the whole thing.
It was well written and was easy to follow but I honestly couldn't help but feel like there was something fake about the whole thing.
November 26, 2015
I can't figure out how to word my feelings about this book. I rated it as high as I did because frankly I enjoyed it in much the same way I used to enjoy reading tabloids. I got the feeling that we were supposed to be surprised by a few of the revelations near the end but I doubt many readers will be. I figured out who he was having an affair with while I was reading about the wedding. The extremely exaggerated descriptions of Glen, combined with the very end of the book make me grateful for the ending because she comes across as one of those women who would leave an abusive marriage and keep going back to him after every apology. And the epilogue probably is meant to show extreme forgiveness...but just felt uncomfortable to me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 7, 2016
At first I was perplexed at how the story was actually sounding like a book not a crime novel. Realizing that the actual victim wrote the book it made more sense.
I give Brenda credit for still seeing the good out of all the horror she was put through. A true inspiration to humanity she is. Personally I would have up right killed him no explanation needed just boom dead.
Excellent read kept me and my friend entertained and wanting more all the way to the end.
I give Brenda credit for still seeing the good out of all the horror she was put through. A true inspiration to humanity she is. Personally I would have up right killed him no explanation needed just boom dead.
Excellent read kept me and my friend entertained and wanting more all the way to the end.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews