Helpful Score: 3
Anne Rule started her crime-writing career by accident when she realized the serial murderer she was helping to investigate bore a striking resemblance to her former coworker and friend, Ted Bundy.
The best and most detailed and revealing story of this famous murderer ever written. Fantastic photos as well, including a personal letter written by Bundy to the author. A frighteningly close look into the mind and habits of a cold-blooded killer who managed to fool a lot of people for a while . . .
The best and most detailed and revealing story of this famous murderer ever written. Fantastic photos as well, including a personal letter written by Bundy to the author. A frighteningly close look into the mind and habits of a cold-blooded killer who managed to fool a lot of people for a while . . .
Helpful Score: 3
Good read per usual for Ann Rule. I didn't know she was that involved with him, in other words, I wasn't aware that the author was such a steady friend. Scary!!! It is a fairly fast paced book and doesn't get bogged down in lengthy descriptions as some of her other novels do. It kept me glued to it!
Helpful Score: 3
This is a chilling account of a case that I only vaguely remember from my childhood. It was a little tough to get into reading, but once you get past the first few chapters it's a tough one to put down.
Helpful Score: 2
This tour de force is Ann Rule's first true crime bestseller. It tells the story of serial killer Ted Bundy, who just happened to be Ms. Rule's acquaintance during the early years of his killing spree. The book recounts Bundy's crimes and Ms. Rule's shock as she comes to understand that the likeable young man she knows is a brutal and clever serial killer of women. A memorable read.
Helpful Score: 1
This book was very good, with a lot of good information about serial killer Ted Bundy from someone who worked beside him for some time.
Helpful Score: 1
This edition includes several updates to the book after the original edition came out. It is a fasinating look at one of the worst serial killers this country has seen, as seen through the eyes of a woman who knew him. Fantastic read.
Helpful Score: 1
This is a phenomenal study into the brain of serial killer Ted Bundy. It is also the scariest book I have ever read. He was clever and cunning and killed with abandon. Ann Rule is a terrific crime writer. I you like true crime, this book will put you over the edge.
Helpful Score: 1
Ann Rule does a fantastic job of describing the journey of Ted Bundy - a book very well worth the read if you are interested in him!
Helpful Score: 1
This book will scare the heck out of you...because it is true. Imagine working next to a serial killer.
The book was great. The only thing I didn't like about it was it never indicated if Bundy was ever electrocuted or not. I had to look it up on the internet.
Not long ago, true crime writer Ann Rule recalls lying on an operating table. The anesthesiologist leaned over before putting her to sleep. "Ann," the anesthesiologist said softly, "tell me, what was Ted Bundy really like?" Despite meeting Florida's electric chair in 1989, the subject of Rule's bestselling book continues to haunt her. Rule and Bundy were friends. They met in 1971 at a Seattle crisis clinic, where they shared the late shift answering a suicide hotline. Their subsequent conversations, meetings, and letters spanned the rest of Bundy's life as he evolved into one of the century's most notorious serial killers. It's been 20 years since Rule first penned this chilling account. But the story--and her 2000 update--will still have readers reaching for their Xanax. No gratuitous gore here; just the basic, bone-chilling evidence. In fact, like a protective mother shielding us from horrors too awful to mention, Rule seems to avoid delving too deeply into crime scene descriptions. She devotes one paragraph in her new afterword to her discovery that Bundy engaged in necrophilia and returned to the scenes of his crimes to "line dead lips and eyes with garish makeup and to put blush on pale cheeks." She tells readers that John Hinckley, who shot Ronald Reagan, and David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam Killer, traded prison correspondences with Bundy. And she hints that Bundy's insatiable killer instincts may have started when he was a 14-year-old paperboy. (Ann Marie Burr, an 8-year-old girl on his route, mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the night and has never been found.) The skimpy update is over too soon, leaving readers wanting more and offering further proof of the public's never-ending fascination with serial killers.
Very good book. Interesting profile into the mind of a serial killer.
This was a good true crime book in which Rule not only wrote about the life and crimes of Ted Bundy, but also wrote about how she was fooled by him for many years.
This book is the very personal story of Ann Rule's relationship with the serial killer, Ted Bundy. The unique thing about this edition is that it is a talking book with Ann Rule reading her story. It is fascinating; I could hardly put it on pause. Rule's matter-of-fact speaking voice is a great counterpoint to the horrors she recounts.
At the end, Rule writes insightfully about Ted Bundy. She is convinced that he could never have been healed. He was manipulative, brilliant, and dangerous. Unhampered by a conscience, Ted was into instant gratification, that did not fill him up. He needed women, but he felt he could control and manipulate them. Ted planned and plotted to humiliate Stephanie (his first girlfriend) after she once rejected him, but it wasn't enough when he dumped her (and got his revenge). Most of Ted's victims seemed to look like Stephanie.
Ms. Rule is eloquent in her sorrow for Ted Bundy and his victims. I look forward to finding more of her books; she has a wonderful way about her descriptions and insights.
At the end, Rule writes insightfully about Ted Bundy. She is convinced that he could never have been healed. He was manipulative, brilliant, and dangerous. Unhampered by a conscience, Ted was into instant gratification, that did not fill him up. He needed women, but he felt he could control and manipulate them. Ted planned and plotted to humiliate Stephanie (his first girlfriend) after she once rejected him, but it wasn't enough when he dumped her (and got his revenge). Most of Ted's victims seemed to look like Stephanie.
Ms. Rule is eloquent in her sorrow for Ted Bundy and his victims. I look forward to finding more of her books; she has a wonderful way about her descriptions and insights.
Ted Bundy was everyone's picture of a natural "winner"--handsome, charming, brilliant in law school, successful with women, on the verge of a dazzling career. On January 24, 1989, Ted Bundy was executed for the murders of three young women; he had also confessed to taking the lives of at least thirty-five more women from coast to coast. This is his story. It was written by a woman who thought she knew Ted Bundy, until she began to put all the evidence together, and the whole terrifying picture emerged from the dark depths.
A chilling look at Ted Bundy. Good book for true crime fans.
Not long ago, true crime writer Ann Rule recalls lying on an operating table. The anesthesiologist leaned over before putting her to sleep. "Ann," the anesthesiologist said softly, "tell me, what was Ted Bundy really like?" Despite meeting Florida's electric chair in 1989, the subject of Rule's bestselling book continues to haunt her. Rule and Bundy were friends. They met in 1971 at a Seattle crisis clinic, where they shared the late shift answering a suicide hotline. Their subsequent conversations, meetings, and letters spanned the rest of Bundy's life as he evolved into one of the century's most notorious serial killers. It's been 20 years since Rule first penned this chilling account. But the story--and her 2000 update--will still have readers reaching for their Xanax. No gratuitous gore here; just the basic, bone-chilling evidence. In fact, like a protective mother shielding us from horrors too awful to mention, Rule seems to avoid delving too deeply into crime scene descriptions. She devotes one paragraph in her new afterword to her discovery that Bundy engaged in necrophilia and returned to the scenes of his crimes to "line dead lips and eyes with garish makeup and to put blush on pale cheeks." She tells readers that John Hinckley, who shot Ronald Reagan, and David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam Killer, traded prison correspondences with Bundy. And she hints that Bundy's insatiable killer instincts may have started when he was a 14-year-old paperboy. (Ann Marie Burr, an 8-year-old girl on his route, mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the night and has never been found.) The skimpy update is over too soon, leaving readers wanting more and offering further proof of the public's never-ending fascination with serial killers.
This book is the last true crime book I have read. She is so good at explaining Bundy it scared me. I read some really scary books, but no more true.
ruthie
ruthie
This book is proof that the truth is really stranger than anything fiction could dream up. Ann Rule here writes about her relationship with Ted Bundy, how she once worked with him at a crisis call center, and how she came to become his friend and later prison penpal. Though there are places that make this book seem dated, this book is still compelling and keeps the reader on edge. One of the best of Ann Rule's books!
This book was not gruesome yet I found it more terrifying for being that way. It is scary what people can be like. I recommend this book to anyone.
This was a thrilling Terrifying book and scares you to think the boy next door could be a serial killer. I have read other books on Ted Bundy and of course watched the movie with Mark Harmon portraying him, but I seem to never be able to comprehend how such a young man with intelligence, charm, looks could be a best friend one minute and then turn into a killer. Chills the bone. Enjoyed this book totally and Ann Rule did a super job in writing his story. Great read...
Super creepy and extremely well written, Ann Rule lays out all the details and still manages to keep the reader engaged.
Great insight on a maniac...
AWESOME read great sad but great book!!
True story of serial killer Ted Bundy
Only Ann Rule could write this compelling story of the most notorius serial killer in US history - because she KNEW him.
Amazing Ann Rule thriller!
The Ann Rule Book that started it all. Her account of Ted Bundy's murderous crime spree written by someone who knew him before he was "that way".
Ann Rule's chilling account of Ted Bundy. She was not just a reporter or writer... she was Ted Bundy's co-worker and friend.
This book was overwhelming. It is unreal to think that a serial killer can hold down a job, relationships, etc., all while committing crimes. Ann Rule does a great job of telling the story factually and without bias even though she knew Bundy personally. A real must-read.
This book was overwhelming. It is unreal to think that a serial killer can hold down a job, relationships, etc., all while committing crimes. Ann Rule does a great job of telling the story factually and without bias even though she knew Bundy personally. A real must-read.
The author was friendly with Ted Bundy before she realized he was a killer. This book illustrates the history of the Ted Bundy killings through a journalistic perspective. Fascinating.
Very well written book. Fascinating story. Frightening, and all the more chilling when you realize this is a true story.
very sad but interesting book, I had a hard time putting it down!
The first big success by Rule. Needs little introduction
Great book. Ann Rule is the best, and it will freak you out there are people like this guy!
it is absolutely amazing that you can be friends with a killer and live to tell about it. I am glad they finally killed Ted Bundy but it would have been great if he would have given all the families closure in who he killed and where they were. If he truly had two personalities I guess it is possible that he doesn't know all the people he did kill and where he put them.
Much better than most of her true crimes which I think focus on trials and courtroom drama too much. Great insight into Bundy's outrageous crimes.
At the time that I read this book, I had just moved into a 'ghetto' area near the school I was going to and began having problems with a peeping tom and other weirdness peculiar to ghettos. I lived alone in a ground floor apartment. I had to call the police on several occasions, usually at three in the morning. I don't live there anymore, but to this day I never leave the house without my pepper spray, and so many times while walking down the street, I remember some of the wisdom Ann spoke of in her book: look like you know what you're doing and where you're going. Don't look like a person someone might want to target, because you just never know.
This was a very interesting true story.
This wasn't as good as I was hoping it was going to be. In my opinon Ann Rule put more of what she was doing in the book rather than devoted on Ted.
I read this online with about 20 people and it was an excellent discussion. Ann Rule worked overnight at a 24 hour crisis center alongside Ted Bundy. They discussed many things and Ann told him about the serial killer articles she was writing about never thinking that she was talking face to face with the killer sitting right next to her. She could not publish the articles until the killer was caught. In the end, the articles became this book, The Stranger Beside Me. The book tells a detailed account about how Bundy committed the murders by fooling all of his victims. He even fooled Ann Rule through most of the book. It was very hard for her to believe that the guy who was saving suicide victims with her was a serial killer. I found this book most interesting as you begin to wonder what has changed such a personable person into a serial killer. I still don't really know that answer and I'm sure there are many factors to consider the reason someone would do what Ted Bundy did. I would highly recommend this book to those who like true crime. Definitely shows how a true story can be stranger than fiction.
This book gave me chills. It is a well written first hand account of the many faces of Bundy. I have read several Ann Rule books but this is my favorite.
Absolutely fascinating how this true crime writer, of all things, worked alongside and was friends with, Ted Bundy. Rule does a fantastic job detailing their relationship and his heinous crimes, and remaining objective throughout.
A terrifying book! To think of knowing someone capable of such horrific crimes.... Shudder!!
GREAT BOOK
Ted Bundy story.
I got this book for my sister and she really liked reading it, wants to keep the book for herself.
