A tour de force from America's best true-crime writer (Dead by Sunset, 1985, etc). Rule's fans will recognize shades of the pretty poisoner Pat Allanson in Dr. Debora Green, a Kansas woman with a lot of anger. She envies her husband, Mike Farrar, his youthfulness, his successful medical career, and his easy manner with women. Though the two have been married for 18 years and have three children, their relationship has always been rocky. Debora is cruel, vindictive, and has at various times been dependent on pills and alcohol. In 1995, with the family in quiet disorder, Mike and Debora plan to go to Peru. The trip is, in Mike's mind, their final act as a couple. While there Mike meets Celeste Walker, the beautiful wife of an unhappy doctor and an old friend of Debora's. After the trip, they begin an affair; Debora finds out, and Mike suddenly begins to suffer debilitating stomach problems, causing him to be frequently hospitalized. Mike eventually discovers several packets of castor beans in Debora's handbag. The bean is the source of ricin, a deadly poison that is later discovered in Mike's bloodstream. As he begins to recover, he moves out of the house and announces plans to divorce Debora. Only weeks later, a suspicious house fire occurs, the second to strike the family. This time it's fatal: The couple's son and younger daughter die; Debora and the middle daughter survive. An investigation leads back to the furious, defiant Debora, who confesses to both the poisoning and the arson after a carefully rendered and gripping preliminary hearing. She is now in a Kansas prison doing ``a hard forty.'' Impossible to put down (though a little skimpy on psychiatric details), this is, thanks to the vivid, fascinating portrait of Debora and of the slow unraveling of her homicidal schemes, one of Rule's best. (24 pages b&w photos, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Feb. 3, 1998
ISBN: 0-684-81047-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1998
BOOK TO SCREEN
Novelist and essayist Indiana (Resentment, 1997; Rent Boy, 1994; etc.) combines fictional and journalistic techniques in this true crime “hybrid of narration and reflection,” which is, in his words, “a pastiche” that is “fact-based, but with no pretense to journalistic “objectivity.” Andrew Cunanan caught the media’s full attention with the murder of fashion designer Gianni Versace, an act that was the culmination of a rampage in which Cunanan apparently killed four other men before Versace and himself afterward. Indiana dismisses the media’s hypercoverage at the time as largely fanciful: —Cunanan’s life was transformed from the somewhat poignant and depressing but fairly ordinary thing it was into a narrative overripe with tabloid evil.— Indiana bases his own portrait on interviews with Cunanan’s childhood friends, school reports, numerous of his acquaintances in San Diego, and FBI and local police reports. The portrait that emerges from this in-depth probe is of a smooth, clever pathological liar, a well-known, well-dressed, but not especially well-liked member of San Diego’s gay subculture. Indiana portrays Cunanan as having a penchant for sadomasochistic sex in which he was the dominating figure. Sometimes kept by an older man, sometimes peddling prescription drugs, Cunanan generally lived well, but in 1997, things took a turn for the worse. With his credit maxed out, he headed for Minnesota to visit two former colleagues, Jeff Trail and David Madson, neither of whom was pleased to see him. Indiana lets his imagination loose on the known forensic data to create the ghastly scenes in which Cunanan murders first Trail (furiously) and then Madson (cold-bloodedly); his brutal S&M slaying of Lee Miglin, a wealthy older man; and his shooting of a cemetery caretaker whose truck he stole. As Cunanan’s life spirals downward, Indiana portrays his psyche taking a nosedive, too. In his version of Versace’s shooting, he has the fugitive Cunanan hearing voices that direct his actions. It may not be the truth, but it all seems quite plausible. A vivid and gripping account. (Author tour)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-019145-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
A fast-paced reconstruction of the five-year crime spree of Cleveland serial rapist Ronnie Shelton and the case that put him behind bars. Neff (Ohio State Univ. School of Journalism; Mobbed Up, not reviewed) certainly avoids the journalistic excesses of the true- crime genre. He gathered documents ranging from private diaries to psychiatric evaluations as well as interviews to reconstruct the plentiful dialogue and interior monologue that advancs the story. He also gained Shelton's cooperation, so he's able dramatically to portray some of the rapist's life and thought. Neff writes in brief scenes: he cuts from women being raped in their homes to the rapist's childhood as a peeping Tom and a victim of physical abuse from his parents, to Shelton's adult life: at a nightclub, a wiry man with long, rock-star hair, fighting to protect a woman menaced by her boyfriend. Maybe, he thinks, he should become a cop to earn the respect of a father who had always thought him a sissy. Neff tries unsuccessfully to make drama out of the police on the case. Better is his focus on Shelton's many victims, fighting the lingering psychological horrors of the crime that has been called ``unfinished murder.'' Finally, the cops got a break, tipped to Shelton by a vague photo of his car taken by a surveillance camera at a bank where his used a victim's ATM card. Despite the testimony of Shelton's psychiatrist that he couldn't help himself, the young man was found guilty of 49 rapes and sentenced to 3,198 years imprisonment. In an epilogue, Neff recounts how he learned that many of the victims ``bonded into a remarkable sisterhood of strength'' and offers some more analysis of Shelton's twisted psyche, although he acknowledges, ``I cannot say for certain why he turned out the way he did.'' Competent and thorough—so thorough, in fact, that local color overwhelms any inquiry into the broader issues raised by Shelton's case.
Pub Date: April 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-671-73185-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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