Crime Files Books

Description /Buy link takes you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.

Crime Files is a series of book by Ann Rule. Ann Rule was a bestselling American author that wrote true crime stories. Rule was a single parent in the 1970s with children she was struggling to raise when a publisher paid her to write a book about a series of murders that rocked the United States.

The victims were beautiful young women. Hers was not the only well-crafted story about the painstaking detective work that brought a killer to justice, and it may have gone unnoticed if not for the infamy of the culprit.

Ann Rule and Ted Bundy were friends. They met during the author’s stint at a Seattle crisis counseling hotline. Like everyone else, Rule described Bundy as brilliant and handsome. It was a shock when his crimes came to light, igniting in Rule a desire to understand the criminal mind.

She garnered a reputation for unraveling the lives of America’s most fascinating murderers. The author selects her subjects carefully, sifting through three hundred or more cases to find a psychopath that deserves her attention.

Rule has no interest in mean and ugly killers because they already fit the bill of a deranged maniac. The author prefers to examine rich, charming, and attractive men and women with a dark side, antagonists everyone loves and respects.

She is not content to expose their misdeeds to the public. Rule enjoys throwing a spotlight on the people they know, friends, family, and neighbors they either fooled or roped into their criminal activities.

Rule’s obsession with crime did not start with Bundy. The author was born in 1931 in Lowell, Michigan, to a teacher that tutored developmentally disabled kids and a sports coach. Her family was steeped in law enforcement.

She had sheriffs, prosecutors, and medical examiners for relatives. One particular grandmother would cook for the prisoners Rule’s grandfather, a sheriff, had jailed. Whenever she visited the couple, Rule would help her grandmother by passing trays to the criminals that occupied the jail.

To her young eyes, they seemed just as friendly and welcoming as Rule’s family members. She couldn’t understand what they had done to deserve incarceration. Later on, she joined the Seattle police department, but a failed eye test dashed her dreams.

However, the author had a plethora of homicide detectives at her beck and call once she began writing for detective magazines. The detectives were more than happy to talk to her because they trusted the author to present them in a positive light.

Rule’s objective is not to condemn or embarrass anyone. Instead, she wants to paint a three-dimensional picture revealing who her subjects are and why they committed heinous crimes.

Ann Rule Awards

Rule received numerous Edgar Award nominations. She also won Anthony Awards.

Ann Rule Books Into Movies

‘The Stranger Beside Me’ became a TV movie. Barbara Hershey played Ann Rule in the project.

Best Ann Rule Books

The author died in 2015 from congestive heart failure. She had four children at the time. Rule’s best books include:

The Stranger Beside Me: Ann Rule was fooled. She thought Ted Bundy was a nice man, a sensitive coworker at the suicide hotline center. But she was wrong. Ted would go down in history as one of America’s most prolific serial killers.

Rule knows that Bundy killed more women than the police realize because he told her of his crimes. The pair stayed in touch even after Bundy was arrested. Rule based this book on their correspondence, not to mention the investigation she undertook after discovering the monster hiding behind the facade Bundy presented at work every day.

Small Sacrifices: Diane Downs was a divorced mother. She did what she could to raise her three children. But a complication had arisen. Diane had started an affair with a fellow employee. She couldn’t wait to start a new life with him.

Unfortunately for Diane, the love of her life did not want children. It couldn’t be helped. Diane was already a mother. She couldn’t abandon her children. Or could she?

The horror began one random night. Diane was driving home when a psychopath shot into her car. One child did not survive. The second child was barely alive. The third was crippled. The police were determined to find the bushy-haired child killer. But the more they dug, the more suspicious Diane became.

What Is The Next Book in The Crime Files Series?

There doesn't seem to be an upcoming book in The Crime Files Series. The newest book is Lying in Wait and Other True Cases and was released on November, 25th 2014.

Home » Series » Crime Files

BookSeries.org