Ann Rule was a popular American true crime writer. Raised in a law enforcement and criminal justice system environment, she grew up wanting to work in law enforcement herself. She was a former Seattle Policewoman and was well educated in psychology and criminology.
She came to prominence with her first book, The Stranger Beside Me, about the Ted Bundy murders. At the time she started researching the book, the murders were still unsolved. In the course of time, it became clear that the killer was Bundy, her friend and her colleague as a trained volunteer on the suicide hotline at the Seattle, Washington Crisis Clinic, giving her a unique distinction among true crime writers.
Rule won two Anthony Awards from Bouchercon, the mystery fans' organization. She was nominated three times for the Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America. She is highly regarded for creating the true crime genre as it exists today.
Ann Rule also wrote under the name Andy Stack. Her daughter is Goodreads author Leslie Rule.
Fascinating to see Seattle's old, before the tech boom. Some quotes:
I always smile when soap-opera writers who seek to send a character to the end of the earth invariably ship him off to Seattle! Never to be heard from again... lost in a wilderness of firs and cedars, perhaps even to be devoured by our elusive Sasquatch half/human-half/beast.
The Columbia Tower, black and square, is 76 stories high, and the tallest building west of the Mississippi was first thought to be a potential hazard to aviation space. It is a gleaming obelisk of ebony and the Smith Tower is but a mushroom at its feet. There are others, built of glass, built of blue and white tile, built as one reviewer said, "of steel and skin." To date 11 buildings in downtown Seattle are more than 40 stories high. (28 now, 35 if you include 40 stories) Ivar went on to build far more impressive restaurants, and to buy the Smith Tower.
He died a few years back, but not without leaving a provision in his will that has continued to pay for the dazzling fireworks display over the Bay on the Fourth of July that was his
Downtown Seattle has a number of hotels, with 6200 rooms available (17k now)
The second floating bridge, the Evergreen Point bridge, was constructed thirty years later and was so heavily traveled from the start that it was able to suspend its tolls in June, 1979 – a full decade before planners had predicted
Trumpeted as the future metropolis of Puget Sound, Port Townsend was a booming little city in the 1880's. On the very northeast tip of the Olympic Peninsula, this port city boasted six banks, three street railroads, and a natural harbor bested only by New York City's! But all its fine dreams were crushed in the crash of 1890