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True crime archives:vol 1:including danger in the dorm
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About the author
Ann Rule
141 books4,527 followersAnn Rule was a popular American true crime writer. Raised in a law enforcement and criminal justice system environment, she grew up wanting to work in law enforcement herself. She was a former Seattle Policewoman and was well educated in psychology and criminology.
She came to prominence with her first book, The Stranger Beside Me, about the Ted Bundy murders. At the time she started researching the book, the murders were still unsolved. In the course of time, it became clear that the killer was Bundy, her friend and her colleague as a trained volunteer on the suicide hotline at the Seattle, Washington Crisis Clinic, giving her a unique distinction among true crime writers.
Rule won two Anthony Awards from Bouchercon, the mystery fans' organization. She was nominated three times for the Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America. She is highly regarded for creating the true crime genre as it exists today.
Ann Rule also wrote under the name Andy Stack . Her daughter is Goodreads author Leslie Rule.
She came to prominence with her first book, The Stranger Beside Me, about the Ted Bundy murders. At the time she started researching the book, the murders were still unsolved. In the course of time, it became clear that the killer was Bundy, her friend and her colleague as a trained volunteer on the suicide hotline at the Seattle, Washington Crisis Clinic, giving her a unique distinction among true crime writers.
Rule won two Anthony Awards from Bouchercon, the mystery fans' organization. She was nominated three times for the Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America. She is highly regarded for creating the true crime genre as it exists today.
Ann Rule also wrote under the name Andy Stack . Her daughter is Goodreads author Leslie Rule.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 1, 2021
I didn't realize until now, but Goodreads grabbed another Ann Rule book that I had read before and marked it as currently reading, instead of this one. Apparently Ann Rule's estate has been re-releasing a lot of her stand alone books and some anthologies. I think this one is fairly okay, but there at times seems to be some victim blaming going on which I don't think Rule meant to do when writing. Some of the stories feel incomplete at times too. That could have been due to the fact that Rule would suddenly jump ahead and we would find out the murderer would now be so and so age, and is no longer in prison.
"Danger in the Dorm"-3.5 stars-This one was a weird story to read. Taking place in 1972, a young woman is found strangled in her dorms at Oregon State. Rule goes over things, but the whole story in the end felt so unfinished. Maybe because the young man who did it, appeared in my eyes to be lying about why he did what he did. The young man eventually was re-released and seems to be off living his life. It always seems so odd when you read about some of these men (who are white) who murderer and rape and only seem to just do a short time in jail.
"An Unlikely Suspect"-4 stars-What a bizarre story. Reading about this, I had a lot of questions. It appeared the "suspect" in this true crime may have been influenced by his parents. There's a lot of things that seemed glossed over in this and the ending definitely is a shocker. Once again we have the suspect eventually going free in the end, and one wonders if the 7 years they got in the end was enough.
"Black Christmas" -5 stars. One of the really sad true crime stories that Rule has talked about in other volumes I think. This follows the murder of Charles and Annie Goldmark and their two sons. Rule traces back the murderer's reasons why he became fixated on the family and the tragedy that unfolded. The case has a few twists though when the man who was convicted of the murder of the family eventually has the death penalty that was imposed thrown out. The state at the time of the book's publication planned on appealing. I followed up via online sources after finishing and the killer remains behind bars, and got life without parole, but the death penalty was removed.
"Campbell's Revenge" -5 stars. I think this is every woman's nightmare. You are raped, you testify against your assailant, and one day your assailant gets out and no one tells you. The fall out from this case was terrible and I felt for the victims in this one.
"One Trick Pony" -3 stars. I have read this one before in another anthology. I didn't feel very satisfied by the conclusion of this one.
"The Computer Error and the Killer" -4.5 stars. This was definitely a heartbreaking story of how the lack of tracking allowed a man to go out and re-offend multiple times which led to the murder of a couple of people.
"The Girl Who Fell in Love With Her Killer" -2 stars. This one irked me. Rule pretty much ignores the victim in this case had a lot of issues after being shot in the head multiple times and also raped 4 times by her assailant. Trying to paint it as she fell in love with her would be killer was way too simplistic. Instead Rule focused on that and not enough I think on the fact that the perpetrator for all intents and purposes appeared to murder one of his fellow soldiers while in Germany. The whole story felt unfinished. I couldn't even find anything after the fact since the man's real name was not used for the story.
"The Last Letter"-2 stars. I felt badly for the woman in this story. I think Rule jumped around too much, but the victim in this story dealt with decades of a man's verbal and mental abuse. I just don't think it's something that most people back then talked about. I felt for the victim, who met her future murderer when she was a teen and he was much older than her. He perused her and they had an affair for several decades. She tries to break away from him at one point, but he ruins her marriage and she goes back to him. I felt like I was reading a story about how a person captures a butterfly and slowly smothers it. In this case once again I felt like the killer was left off lightly.
"The Peeping Tom" -3 stars. This was such a weird true crime. What I do like is when you get the cases where the police really had nothing to do with solving the case. This was one of those.
"The Rehabilitation of a Monster"-4 stars. Well the title says it all. This was a really gruesome story of a man who was a butcher of women. At least in this case the man who was captured ended up not being released.
"The Vanishing" -2 stars. This was such an odd story to end on. No murder took place. Just a sad case of an accident that led to death. Felt like it could have been removed. Rule tries her best to maybe say that the victim was upset about a mysterious man and that led to her accident but that was such a reach.
"Danger in the Dorm"-3.5 stars-This one was a weird story to read. Taking place in 1972, a young woman is found strangled in her dorms at Oregon State. Rule goes over things, but the whole story in the end felt so unfinished. Maybe because the young man who did it, appeared in my eyes to be lying about why he did what he did. The young man eventually was re-released and seems to be off living his life. It always seems so odd when you read about some of these men (who are white) who murderer and rape and only seem to just do a short time in jail.
"An Unlikely Suspect"-4 stars-What a bizarre story. Reading about this, I had a lot of questions. It appeared the "suspect" in this true crime may have been influenced by his parents. There's a lot of things that seemed glossed over in this and the ending definitely is a shocker. Once again we have the suspect eventually going free in the end, and one wonders if the 7 years they got in the end was enough.
"Black Christmas" -5 stars. One of the really sad true crime stories that Rule has talked about in other volumes I think. This follows the murder of Charles and Annie Goldmark and their two sons. Rule traces back the murderer's reasons why he became fixated on the family and the tragedy that unfolded. The case has a few twists though when the man who was convicted of the murder of the family eventually has the death penalty that was imposed thrown out. The state at the time of the book's publication planned on appealing. I followed up via online sources after finishing and the killer remains behind bars, and got life without parole, but the death penalty was removed.
"Campbell's Revenge" -5 stars. I think this is every woman's nightmare. You are raped, you testify against your assailant, and one day your assailant gets out and no one tells you. The fall out from this case was terrible and I felt for the victims in this one.
"One Trick Pony" -3 stars. I have read this one before in another anthology. I didn't feel very satisfied by the conclusion of this one.
"The Computer Error and the Killer" -4.5 stars. This was definitely a heartbreaking story of how the lack of tracking allowed a man to go out and re-offend multiple times which led to the murder of a couple of people.
"The Girl Who Fell in Love With Her Killer" -2 stars. This one irked me. Rule pretty much ignores the victim in this case had a lot of issues after being shot in the head multiple times and also raped 4 times by her assailant. Trying to paint it as she fell in love with her would be killer was way too simplistic. Instead Rule focused on that and not enough I think on the fact that the perpetrator for all intents and purposes appeared to murder one of his fellow soldiers while in Germany. The whole story felt unfinished. I couldn't even find anything after the fact since the man's real name was not used for the story.
"The Last Letter"-2 stars. I felt badly for the woman in this story. I think Rule jumped around too much, but the victim in this story dealt with decades of a man's verbal and mental abuse. I just don't think it's something that most people back then talked about. I felt for the victim, who met her future murderer when she was a teen and he was much older than her. He perused her and they had an affair for several decades. She tries to break away from him at one point, but he ruins her marriage and she goes back to him. I felt like I was reading a story about how a person captures a butterfly and slowly smothers it. In this case once again I felt like the killer was left off lightly.
"The Peeping Tom" -3 stars. This was such a weird true crime. What I do like is when you get the cases where the police really had nothing to do with solving the case. This was one of those.
"The Rehabilitation of a Monster"-4 stars. Well the title says it all. This was a really gruesome story of a man who was a butcher of women. At least in this case the man who was captured ended up not being released.
"The Vanishing" -2 stars. This was such an odd story to end on. No murder took place. Just a sad case of an accident that led to death. Felt like it could have been removed. Rule tries her best to maybe say that the victim was upset about a mysterious man and that led to her accident but that was such a reach.
July 30, 2020
I gave up on this one after about 150 pages; the stories seemed to end about halfway through (I seriously thought the ebook was corrupt). It was very frustrating to get engrossed in a case and then have it end suddenly before things were resolved.
April 14, 2021
Another good collection of true crime stories; I just can't seem to get enough of these! :)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews