Bitter Harvest: A Woman's Fury, A Mother's Sacrifice - Hardcover

Rule, Ann

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684810476 ISBN 13: 9780684810478

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1998

Synopsis

Journeys inside the twisted mind of a killer, Dr. Debora Green, after the cancer specialist was arrested for the arson murders of two of her three children and the attempted poisoning of her estranged husband

About this title

Review:

Fans of Ann Rule will find much to relish in Bitter Harvest, the tale of a brilliant Kansas physician who holds herself together well enough to put on a decent show for the outside world, but in the heart of her horror-struck family is a violent and baffling monster. She drinks, abuses drugs, spews invective, and even lights fires. At one point she learns from an Agatha Christie novel about a potent toxin contained in castor beans, and she starts poisoning her long-suffering husband. Yet until the final fire that consumes two of her children, they continue to love her and defend her to attackers. Rule tells the story with flair, conveying all of the heady feelings involved, but still the book has a flaw: Rule fails to understand the main character. When a psychiatrist testifies that the doctor is at a younger age than a toddler in her ability to process or sustain emotions, Rule writes, "That was a shocker. Could a woman with an IQ of 165 and a biting, facetious wit, a woman who had zipped through college and medical school, be a child emotionally?"Yes, she could. Bitter Harvest would've been a stronger book if Rule had shown us how.

About the Author:

Ann Rule is a former Seattle policewoman and the author of nineteen New York Times bestsellers, including her acclaimed Crime Files volumes: Empty Promises, A Rage to Kill, In the Name of Love, A Fever in the Heart, You Belong to Me, A Rose for Her Grave, and The End of the Dream. Her eighth, all-new Crime Files collection, Last Dance, Last Chance, is available now from Pocket Books. She is also the author of Every Breath You Take, the only true-crime book written at the request of the murder victim -- a woman ensnared by the violent obsessions of her millionaire ex-husband; ...And Never Let Her Go, the nationally renowned case of deadly seducer Thomas Capano, which was made into a CBS miniseries; and Bitter Harvest, which unravels the shattering case of Debora Green, a doctor and loving mother driven to lethal acts of vengeance. Her other titles include the bestsellers If You Really Loved Me, Everything She Ever Wanted, Small Sacrifices, Dead by Sunset, The Want-Ad Killer, The I-5 Killer, Lust Killer; and her classic The Stranger Beside Me, the unnerving chronicle of Rule's dawning horror as she realized her friend and coworker, Ted Bundy, was a serial killer. She has also written a #1 New York Times bestselling novel, Possession.

Ann Rule has testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee and regularly presents seminars to law enforcement agencies, including the FBI Academy, as well as district attorneys and victim support groups. She served on the U.S. Justice Department task force that set up VI-CAP (the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program now in place at FBI headquarters) to track and trap serial killers. She lives near Seattle. For more information, visit her Web site at www.annrules.com.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0684810476
• ISBN 13: 9780684810478
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352