In 1974, Alice, a desperate young mother in a gritty Wyoming boomtown, kills her husband and dumps his body where it will never be found, then slips away and starts a new life. But when her new man's ex-wife and two kids start demanding more of him, Alice delivers an ultimatum: fix the problem or lose her forever. With Alice's help, Gerald fixes the problem in an extraordinarily ghastly way...and they live happily ever after...that is, until 2013, almost 40 years later, when somebody finds a dead man's skeleton in a place where Alice thought he'd never be found.

On a warm Florida evening, Karen Gregory saw a familiar face at her door. What the beautiful young woman could not know was that she was staring into the eyes of her killer - a savage monster who would rape her, stab her to death, and leave her battered body on the floor outside the bedroom. Detectives frantically sifting through the evidence were tormented by one disturbing question after another....

The Marshalls were the model family of Tom’s River, New Jersey, living the American dream and seemingly in possession of all that money could buy. Rob Marshall, a successful insurance broker, was the big breadwinner, king of the country-club set. Maria Marshall was his stunningly beautiful wife and the perfect mom to their three great kids.Then one night, while the couple drove home from Atlantic City, Rob, his head bloodied, reported Maria had been brutally slain. Sympathy poured in - until disquieting facts began to surface....

In this harrowing New York Times best seller, Ann Rule is at her masterful best as she winnows horrific truths from the ashes of what seemed like paradise in Prairie Village, Kansas. Rule probes the case of Debora Green, a doctor and a loving mother who seemed to epitomize the dreams of the American heartland. A small-town girl with a genius IQ, she achieved an enviable life. But when a raging fire destroyed that home and took two lives, the trail of clues led investigators to a stunning conclusion. 

On a snowy winter evening in 1982, 21-year-old Mary Brown accepted a ride from a handsome stranger in the resort town of Breckenridge, Colorado. The trip ended with her brutally beaten and raped. Mary survived, but her predator's violence had only just begun. After 10 years in prison, Tom Luther was released a far more vicious criminal. Soon, from the Rockies to West Virginia, like Ted Bundy, Luther enticed a chain of women into his murderous trap.

On March 29, 1975, sisters Katherine and Sheila Lyons, ages 10 and 12, vanished from a shopping mall in suburban Washington, DC. As shock spread, then grief, a massive police effort found nothing. The investigation was shelved, and the mystery endured. Then, in 2013, a cold case squad detective found something he and a generation of detectives had missed. It pointed them toward a man named Lloyd Welch, then serving time for child molestation in Delaware.

Loni Ann, Cynthia, Lauren, Cheryl, and Sara seemed to have it all - beauty, wealth, children, and a husband who they believed to be this perfect man - Brad Cunningham. He was handsome, charismatic, and mysterious. They adored him and tried to give him all he wanted. But he wanted everything: sex, money, and it seemed, their very lives. How long would it take before he finally got what he deserved?

It’s a chilling reality that homicide investigators know all too well: The last face most murder victims see is not that of a stranger, but of someone familiar. Whether only an acquaintance or a trusted intimate, such killers share a common trait that triggers the downward spiral toward death for someone close to them: They are masters at hiding who they really are. Their clever masks let them appear safe, kind, and truthful. They are anything but - and almost no one can detect the murderous impulses buried deep in their psyches.

He enjoyed the typical simple pleasures of a boy growing up in the country: camping, hunting, and fishing with family and friends. But he also enjoyed brutally murdering women, and he would become one of the youngest serial killers in Canadian history.

Expertly analyzing a shocking, headline-making case, Rule unmasks the deadly motives inside a seemingly idyllic marriage: a beautiful young wife, a rising star in America's top-ranked computer corporation, and a prosperous husband, the scion of a family building business.

Although happily ensconced in a loving second marriage and a new family of quadruplets, Sheila Blackthorne Bellush never truly escaped the enslavement of her ex-husband, multimillionaire Allen Blackthorne, a handsome charmer - and a violent, controlling sociopath who terrorized her for a decade after their divorce. When Sheila was slain in her home, in the presence of her four toddlers, authorities raced to link the crime to Blackthorne, the man who vowed to monitor Sheila's every move in his obsessive quest for power and revenge.

The most fatal mistake? Trust. It's the foundation of any enduring relationship between friends, lovers, spouses, and families. But when trust is placed in those who are not what they seem, the results can be deadly. Ann Rule, who famously chronicled her own shocking experience of unknowingly befriending a sociopath in The Stranger Beside Me, offers a riveting, all-new collection from her true-crime files, with the lethally shattered bonds of trust at the core of each blood-soaked account.

When Danny and Joanne Lindstrom's camping trip in the Cascade mountains goes terribly awry, beautiful young Joanne is left alone and stranded in the savage wilderness. Her last hope is to rely on another camper, a tall stranger who seems to know the forest and the dangers there all too well. Without him, she will surely die; with him, her future is as unpredictable as the lowering clouds that envelop the mountain. He asks only that she trust him.

As oil-boom money poured into Anchorage, Alaska the city quickly became a prime destination for the seedier elements of society: prostitutes, pimps, con men, and criminals of all breeds looking to cash in. However, something even worse lurked in their midst. To all who knew him, Robert Hansen was a typical hardworking businessman, husband, and father. But hidden beneath the veneer of mild respectability was a monster whose depraved appetites could not be sated. From 1971 to 1983, Hansen was a human predator, stalking women on the edges of Anchorage society.

When Misty was six years old, her family started to live and dress like the Amish. Misty and her sister were kept as slaves on a mountain ranch where they were subjected to almost complete isolation, sexual abuse, and extreme physical violence. When Misty reached her teens, her parents feared she and her sister would escape and took them to an Amish community where they were adopted and became baptized members. Misty was devastated to once again find herself in a world of fear, animal cruelty, and sexual abuse.