Anyone Else Read True Crime Books?

[Shagley]

I always liked Ann Rule's books until she wrote one about a friend of mine, Scott Scurlock. She seemed to overdramatize him to the point of him being almost ridiculous. Yes, he was one of the most handsome men I've ever met but no, he was NOT a womanizer. In fact, every woman (well, straight woman) at Evergreen drooled over Scott and he was always a gentleman and only had one or two girlfriends during college. And yes, he lived in a treehouse and had a picture of Robin Hood in his house. But honestly, he did not think of himself as the romantic figure she would have you believe.

I would have to agree about Ann Rule. I enjoyed her books until she wrote one about my 2nd Cousin - (Dr. Debra Green - the book is called Bitter Harvest). It IS a horrific story, and my cousin DESERVES to be in prison (she set fire to her house and two of her children died in the fire), so I am not in any way making any excuses for her or what she did. BUT, Ann Rule practically fell in love with my cousin's ex-husband and wrote about how attractive and charming and loving and wonderful he is. I'm sorry, but that is the furthest thing from the truth. He is (and always has been) geeky, rude, and arrogant. In fact even the reviews on Amazon.com seems that readers who never even knew them could tell that Ann Rule was just blinded by her obvious love/lust for Debra's ex-husband. I lost all respect for Ann Rule after that book, not because of what she wrote about the actual facts of the case - for all I know they may all be true. But the things she wrote about the ex-husband were so far off the truth that I figure that the rest of her books must also have quite a bit of "fiction" added to the facts just to make for a more interesting read. Now I never know what parts of her books to believe. Also, she spent months talking to the ex-husband, but about two hours talking to Debra. Kind of hard to write a balanced book when you don't really bother to hear both sides.