Green River Running Red - Ann Rule 2.5/5

[Nicole D.]

My first stair....

I was fascinated by The Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy The Shocking Inside Story Rule's first True Crime book. I figured she'd only get better over time, so I went for another high profile killer, The Green River Killer published almost 25 years after Bundy.

There were many issues with this book that just didn't exist in the prior book. For one, the constant mention of Rule's relationship with Bundy. We get it. Two, the number of victims. By the time this was published, the trend was "remember the victims" and Rule did that. In detail. I appreciate that she wanted to honor them, however, every story was the same and 2/3rds of the book went something like this ... Girl runs away from home, girl becomes prostitute, girl calls home, girl is never heard from again (da da dummm), almost X amount of time from the date they were reported missing the body is found.

49 times.

I'm slightly exaggerating because all 49 women didn't have detail on them.

Anyway,the last 1/3 of the book was about the GRK and that was more interesting, and I don't mean to sound callous but I was completely bored by that point. Then more victims were found and we had the same sequence of events.

It took 20 years to find him, and Rule had been writing the book for all that time so I think that was part of the problem. Regardless, it was too long. Rule could have paid tribute to the victims in a respectful way in half the time. I don't feel compelled to read more of her stuff.