Practice to Deceive - Softcover

Rule, Ann

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1416544631 ISBN 13: 9781416544630

Publisher: Pocket Books, 2014

Synopsis

From “America’s best true-crime writer” (Kirkus Reviews) Ann Rule comes the New York Times bestselling mystery novel of drama, greed, sex, scandal, and murder on an eerie island in the Pacific Northwest.

Nestled in Puget Sound and accessible only by ferry, Whidbey Island is a gem off the coast of Washington State where life is insular and the island’s year-round residents tend to know one another’s business. But when the blood-drenched body of Russel Douglas is discovered the day after Christmas in his SUV, the whole island is shocked. No one can imagine who among them could plot such a cold-blooded crime. And like a cast of characters from a mystery novel, a host of Whidbey residents fall under suspicion.

Brenna Douglas was Russel’s estranged and soon-to-be-ex wife, who allowed him to come home for a Christmas visit with their children. Brenna often complained to her good friend Peggy Sue that Russel was physically and emotionally abusive. Married three times, Peggy Sue’s own life has been one of extremes: hers is a rags-to-riches-and-back-again tale. But in 2003, her love affair with married guitarist Jim Huden led the two Whidbey Island natives to pursue their ultimate dreams of wealth and privilege—even at the expense of human life.

Unravel the tangled web woven by Russel Douglas’s murder in Practice to Deceive, the newest heart pounding true-crime tour de force from Ann Rule.

About this title

About the Author:

Ann Rule wrote thirty-five New York Times bestsellers, all of them still in print. Her first bestseller was The Stranger Beside Me, about her personal relationship with infamous serial killer Ted Bundy. A former Seattle police officer, she used her firsthand expertise in all her books. For more than three decades, she was a powerful advocate for victims of violent crime. She lived near Seattle and died in 2015.

From Booklist:

This is Rule’s twenty-fourth true-crime book in a successful sweep that started with her brilliant take on serial killer Ted Bundy, the man she worked next to at a Seattle crisis center. Rule’s true-crime books are notable for their in-depth forensics, perceptive trial coverage (often), and keen psychological insight (always). Her latest extends an analogy she has often used: how an investigation into homicide takes, basically, a stick drawing of a person, the victim, and with each piece of evidence and parts of interviews, transforms the stick figure into a rounded, complex human being whose life holds the key to his or her death. In 2003, a man’s body was discovered in a car parked in front of a cabin on Whidbey Island, Washington. The victim, Russel Douglas, had a single gunshot wound to his head. The investigation took years to complete (it took a decade to come to trial) and wound through seven states and Mexico. Rule is at her best in tracing Douglas’ frantic, depression-fueled changes in the years preceding his murder. This time Rule occasionally becomes tedious in her detailed coverage of every phase of the investigation and trial, using her remarkable access to sources to deliver, finally, too much information. Still, this account delivers quite a punch in its final revelations. --Connie Fletcher

About this edition

• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1416544631
• ISBN 13: 9781416544630
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 416