SMALL SACRIFICES: A True Story of Passion and Murder

by Ann Rule ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 27, 1987

A harrowing pathological portrait, a nearly unthinkable triple-murder plot, a hold-your-breath police procedural and a tale of dedication and compassion all superbly combined to produce the most riveting true-crime account since In Cold Blood. From her heartbreakingly ironic rifle to her final satisfying ""revelation,"" Rule guides her readers through a Middle American world of violence and shopping malls, of sexual obsession and pizzas ""to-go,"" of child abuse and music videos. On the evening of May 19, 1983, a shiny red Nissan Pulsar, horn blaring, screeched to a halt outside the entrance to the Springfield, Oregon, McKenzie-Willamette Hospital. Inside were 28-year-old Diane Downs and, scattered around her like discarded rag dolls, her three children. The middle child, Cheryl, age seven, was dead; her elder sister Christie, eight, and three-year-old Danny, nearly so. All had been shot. Downs herself was less seriously wounded. The assailant, she told hospital staffers, was a ""bushy-haired stranger""who had accosted the family on an isolated road as they were driving home from a visit with friends. Thus begins this true tale of a modern Medea. His suspicions aroused by Downs' apparent lack of interest in her children's survival and by glaring discrepancies in her story, Assistant District Attorney Fred Hugi investigates What he finds will not only have readers gasping in horror but pondering the dark irrationalities lurking in American society as well. What could have been in lesser hands merely a sensationalist 80's gothic becomes, thanks to Rule's painstaking research and more-than-considerable literary skills, a work of resonance and revelation. Paced with masterful assurance, incorporating verbatim trial transcripts and diary entries, probing the reactions of the Oregon townspeople, this narrative maintains its breath-stopping tension to the very end. Sure to be talked about for a long time to come.

Pub Date: May 27, 1987

ISBN: 0451166604

Page Count: -

Publisher: New American Library

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1987

Categories: NONFICTION