Deadly Deception

by Alva Busch

From Illinois homicide investigator Alva Busch comes the chilling inside account of psychotic killer Dale Anderson's brutal slaughter of a pregnant woman and her son. Busch uses never-before-disclosed information, interviews with Anderson, and the killer's own "diary of death" to deliver this shocking true story. 12 pages of never-before-published photos.

Genres: True Crime

352 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 1, 1993

Reviews

[Dave]

Interesting story. Poorly written.

[Nicole C. (using StoryGraph more these days)]

An interesting case of a coldly calculating killer, marred by mediocre writing. I find it a bit bizarre that Mr. Busch refers to himself in the third person. Ordinarily, this can give an omniscient perspective. . . except when the person was actually involved and couldn't be everywhere. The author gives us the thoughts and feelings of people such as the State's Attorney, when said person was visiting with his own family. How does he know? It's unfortunate that this appears to be the only book on Dale Anderson in the Radford archives. The last update to this one says 1998, and I wonder if there's any new information since then.

[Fishface]

This was a good read about a very, very unusual case. This one is told from the point of view of a CSI man with the Illinois State Police, combining what he saw at the scene of a horrific crime with the findings of other investigators, showing the reader how they carefully built their case against a weird, weird, weird suspect. I read over the paragraph describing the injuries to Kenneth Lanman several times, in disbelief. A lot of this one is hard to get your head around. Busch's writing can be pretty ungraceful at times, but that never slowed me down.

[Maddie Sanchez]

A really good, quick read for a true crime lover. A detailed roadmap of the case as told by the lead forensic investigator. A tragic case with multiple twists and turns. Did he just kill a mother and son? Or did he also kill two other women with plans laid out to kill more? Dale Anderson rots in prison for the horrific crimes he committed against an innocent woman and child.

[Karen Mudd-Osborn]

This happened at the school I teach at! :(

[Eleanor Thompson]

True crime story written by the lead investigator so the writing isn't great but the story was interesting.