1 New York Times bestselling author and queen of true crime Ann Rule’s sixteenth volume in her True Crime Files series, Deadly Neighbors delves into the unsolved case of a billionaire’s son mysteriously falling off a balcony to his death and more.
In July 2011, billionaire Jonah Shacknai’s Coronado, California, mansion was the setting for two horrifying deaths only days apart—his young son’s plunge from a balcony and his girlfriend’s ghastly hanging. What really happened? Baffling questions remain unanswered, as these cases were closed far too soon for hundreds of people; Rule looks at them now through the eyes of a relentless crime reporter. The second probe began in Utah when Susan Powell vanished in a 2009 blizzard. Her controlling husband, Josh, proved capable of a blind rage that was heartbreakingly fatal to his innocent small sons almost three years later in a tragedy that shocked America as the details unfolded. If anyone had detected the depth of depravity within Josh Powell, perhaps the family that loved and trusted him would have been saved. In these and seven other riveting cases, Ann Rule exposes the twisted truth behind the façades of Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors.
These doomed relationships are the focus of queen of true crime Ann Rule’s sixteenth all-new Crime Files collection. In these shattering inside views of both headlined and little-known homicides, Rule speaks for vulnerable victims who relied on the wrong people. She begins with two startling novella-length investigations. Views: 745
A short story about how one song changed a man's life forever.George is 89 years old and on his deathbed. His final wish is for his daughter to sing him this special song so he can remember his past one last time. But when he starts noticing things in his memories that he didn't notice before, things start turning bad for him. Follow George through his memories as a dark secret is revealed in this short story. Views: 728
BREATHING FIRE & OTHER STORIES by Courtney Wallace is a collection of three short stories that show you the darker side of the human creed. A darkness abounds within each story, taking viewers through gut-wrenching history and into the dystopia future. Humans can truly be terrifying little creatures.“Breathing Fire” How do you explain war to a child? Annie doesn’t need it explained, she’s grown up in it for as long as she can remember. Set in London, during the German Blitz attacks in World War II, Annie watches her home being threatened every night. The great German dragons come to blow fire down on the Englishmen as they run for the shelters. It never seems to end and Annie is often found wondering what life looks like without the threat of death. Without the threat of gas chambers and extinction. “The High Card” Doug was never a fast learner. It took him years to learn to read and even longer to perform any basic math but there are some things in life that are, unfortunately, very obvious. Like, when the sun sets the moon rises, or if you stand out in the rain you will get wet, and especially that if your wife becomes distant and leaves at odd hours she’s probably cheating. Doug was slow but he wasn’t stupid, he saw the looks and caresses between his wife and best friend. He thinks, it’s about time he did something about it. “Genticae Experimenta” In the future germs, infections, and bacteria rule over all. Antibiotics and immunizations have failed us and the entire human population is being picked off. The Abbott Organization has come to the rescue, hiring the best scientists from across the globe to find cures to these superbugs, by any means necessary. Quickly, the project takes a darker turn. Humans and animals are brutally experimented on, leaving physical and emotional scars. But who is to blame? The desperate scientists or the ambitious and ruthless CEO who created the project? Views: 713
Between 1989 and 1990, Aileen Wuornos, a hitchhiking prostitute, shot, killed, and robbed seven men in remote Florida locations. Arrested in 1991, Wuornos insisted she had acted in self-defense, but the jury had little sympathy. Condemned to death on six separate counts, she was executed by lethal injection in 2002.An abused runaway who turned to prostitution to survive, Wuornos has become iconic of vengeful women who lash out at the nearest target. She has also become a touchstone for women’s, prostitutes’, and prisoners’ rights advocates. Her story has inspired myriad books and articles, as well as the 2003 movie Monster, for which Charlize Theron won an Academy Award. But until now, Wuornos’s uncensored voice has never been heard.Dear Dawn is Wuornos’s autobiography culled from her ten-year death row correspondence with beloved childhood friend Dawn Botkins. Authorized for publication by Wuornos and edited under the... Views: 677
Written as a screenplay, this real life story follows a young boy named Alfred from his early life in Hungary during the rise of the German war machine. Eventually sent to Auschwitz, Alfred said goodbye to his family. Over a harrowing 15 months, Alfred survives starvation, disease, and deplorable conditions in the concentration camp with the help of his make-shift family of fellow inmates.Written as a screenplay, this real life story follows a young boy named Alfred from his early life in Hungary during the rise of the German war machine. First his father is taken in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. Then he, his brothers, and his mother are sent to a ghetto and then eventually to Auschwitz where Alfred said goodbye to them all. Over a harrowing 15 months, Alfred survives starvation, disease, and deplorable conditions in the concentration camp with the help of his make-shift family of fellow inmates. As the war closes and the Germans begin their retreat, Alfred survives a 500 mile trek to yet another concentration camp. It is a story of the tragedy of war, but also the amazing endurance and hope when one has the will to survive. Views: 671
Acerbus hates his job. While he is content to watch and study the mortal races, the other gods constantly look for reasons to destroy their newly-created world. When they finally find an excuse, they command Acerbus to become the Smiter, destroyer of all creation.Acerbus decides that there is only one way to ensure his own failure and save the world: by becoming an Evil Overlord.Acerbus hates his job. While he is content to watch and study the mortal races, the other gods constantly look for reasons to destroy their newly-created world. When they finally find an excuse, they command Acerbus to become the Smiter, destroyer of all creation.Armed with nothing but spite and goblins, Acerbus decides that there is only one way to ensure his own failure and save the world: by becoming an Evil Overlord.“Smite Me, Oh Dark One” is a comedic fantasy short story.Cover by John Comegno Views: 671
Jodie is a perfectly happy average teenage vampire. Well she was perfectly happy until everything wemt wrongDumped on Homecoming night, Amanda Larson assumes that her life is over. That is until Jake Edwards, her next-door neighbor and long time crush, has come to the rescue. Although he is visiting from college, Amanda can't help but hope that their night will lead into something bigger. Jake, on the other hand, knows that despite his attraction to little Mandy, he can't commit, not while he's away at college. Still, Amanda will never forget the kiss she shares with the boy next door.This is a prequel short story for a contemporary romance novel, Time Changes Everything. Views: 669
I'll be watching you.
Walking home on a dark night, you hear footsteps coming up behind you. As they get closer, your heart pounds harder. Who is closing in with dangerous intent -- a total stranger? Or someone you know and trust? The answer is as simple as turning around, but don't look behind you...run.
Ann Rule, who shared her own nerve-jangling account of unknowingly befriending sadistic sociopath Ted Bundy in The Stranger Beside Me, chronicles other fateful encounters with the hidden predators among us in this riveting collection, fifteenth in the bestselling series drawn from her personal files.
First in line is a stunning case that spanned thirty years and took a determined detective to four states -- ending, finally, in Alaska -- where he unravelled not one but two murders.
A second case appears to begin and end with the hunt for the Green River Killer, focusing on a Washington State man who was once cleared as a suspect in that deadly chain of homicides. But the millionaire property owner believed he had successfully buried his own murderous past and the awful truth behind his young wife's disappearance. She vanished soon after she left for a day at the Seattle World's Fair, and her three small children grew up believing their mother had abandoned them. But one amazing witness remained -- the missing woman's best friend, who heard her last words in a frantic phone call -- "He's coming!" -- before the line went dead. Only since Robert Hansen's suicide has the monster within been revealed.
In another true story, a petite woman went to a tavern, looking only for conversation and fun. Instead, she met violent death in the form of a seven-foot man who had seemed shy and harmless. You'll feel a chill as you uncover these and numerous other cases of unfortunate victims who made one tragic mistake: trusting the wrong person -- even someone they'd known intimately, or thought they knew. Views: 666
Why would a man kill his lover's husband and then his wife, the woman who fought successfully to have him paroled from prison? Why would he risk arrest by kidnapping the child of another woman who adored him?
Because they were...
Worth More Dead
A cold case reopened -- and solved -- with dogged police work and new evidence. One of the shocking true crimes of passion and greed from Ann Rule's Crime Files.
Former Marine sergeant and judo instructor Roland Pitre Jr. claimed it was all an elaborate plan to win back his wife's love -- it wasn't supposed to end with her dead body in the trunk of a car. Nearly twenty years later, he acknowledged that he had hired someone to kill his estranged wife in 1988, though his alleged excuse for why a monstrous "mistake" happened is as shocking and convoluted as the crime itself. Eventually, he was charged with first-degree murder in the long-unsolved death of Cheryl Pitre, after a mysterious witness betrayed Pitre to save his own skin. Tracing back the dark and bloody path of Pitre's life, two generations of detectives found a chain of brutal and terrifying crimes by a man who manipulated the courts and prisons to walk free. Views: 658
Ann Rule dissects the convoluted love affairs that all too often end in violence in this unnerving collection drawn from her personal crime files. From traditional courtships to Internet relationships, the passions that rule the heart can also fuel the destructive fires of rage, jealousy and murder. There are stalkers driven by obsession, gay lovers who learn too late that things are not as they appear, and conjugal visits in the shadow of prison walls. Ann Rule goes beyond the headlines made by these unusual stories to chronicle the downward spiral that begins when promises are broken. Views: 656
William is a bright young boy who gets drawn into an alternate universe, within which; he is the only hope of a GoddessDignity and Reason have suffered much stress and misery because of their cousin Guiles, his daughter Prevarica, and the rest of the Leasing family. Now Guiles leaves Dignity the responsibility for bankrupt and neglected Founders Grove park, and it will take miracles—and a really good lawyer—to get him out of this. As for the Leasings, when they land in terrible trouble, old Ambassador Grace advises Dignity and Reason to try to save them, and he offers the prospect of help from Heavenite secret agent Patience Orchard. The question is, would the cousins rather just be rid of the Leasings? Views: 651
Jodie is a perfectly happy average teenage vampire. Well she was perfectly happy until everything wemt wrongStephen is an analyst for the CIA. He discovers a plot by the President of the United States, whose aspirations would take him to a higher world leadership position at the detriment of America. The President's agenda involves the leader of a Middle Eastern country, a financier for the President's agenda, a U.N. professor, and a terrorist leader. Can the President be arrested for treason? Can Stephen stop the President's Agenda? Views: 651
FBI agent Trace Nickels seeks revenge for the killing of his partner. Someone possesses nuclear briefcases and is trying to manipulate events in the US. Follow Agent Nickels personal trials as he helps the High-Tech Division of the FBI. Read how Trace and his fellow agents race against time to expose the criminal they know as The Doctor.How does a normal, college educated, military trained Intelligence agent get so far down that he has to spend time on skid row busting perps? Is it therapy? Or just anger and depression. What does he really want out of life; peace and quiet or always in crisis? Follow FBI agent Trace Nickels as he seeks revenge for the killing of his partner. Someone possesses nuclear briefcases and is trying to manipulate events in the US. Follow Agent Nickels personal trials as he helps the High-Tech Division of the FBI. Read how Trace and his fellow agents race against time to expose the criminal they know as The Doctor. Views: 629
What happens when you leave the life you know for an unknown adventure? What's going to happen? Is everything going to be as fun as you might think?A Tale of Community and Corruption.2140 CEFor a Century the world has been ignorant of the life that dwells beyond Stone Hill Garrison.A community has thrived in the intervening years since The Great Pathogen, ever conscious they may one day be found by the slowly deteriorating old-world.Unknown to them, the Ministry of Defence suspects that not only is there life beyond the border, but a community able to manipulate and disperse the virus that wiped out a quarter of the world’s population a century before.The villagers carry out their lives while a countdown hangs over them, swiftly ticking to conclude in a violent and harrowing confrontation on the shores of Mortehoe. Views: 612
