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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 364
EAN num: 9780451166609
ISBN number: 0451166604
Label: Signet
Manufacturer: Signet
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 496
Printing Date: July 05, 1988
Publishing house: Signet
Sale Popularity Level: 47341
Studio: Signet
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Ann Rule's shocking and powerful account of the destructive forces that drove Diane Downs, a beautiful young mother, to shoot her three young children in cold blood.
'Vivid....Extraordinary...a page-turner.'--New York Times Book Review
'Superb...[a] riveting detective story.'--Indianapolis Star
'A harrowing pathological portrait....A work of resonance and revelation with breath-stopping tension to the end.' --Kirkus Reviews
'Fascinating...grisly...un-putdownable.' --New York Daily News
'Excellent....One of the most detailed studies of a sociopath to dignify the true-crime circuit.' --The San Francisco Chronicle
'A raw docudrama of almost unbelievable intensity.' --Booklist
* Also by Ann Rule (in Signet's newly repackaged editions): The Stranger Beside Me (4/99), The I-5 Killer (6/99), The Want-Ad Killer (8/99), The Lust Killer (10/99)
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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This book held me hostage from the very first page. I loved it. Having recently received a master's degree in applied behavioral science, I found Diane's behavior fascinating! And, of course, Ann Rule wrote so seamlessly, I didn't even notice how quickly I was flipping pages. This book is among her very best.
Rated by buyers 
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Rule could benefit tremendously from a good editor and a good copy editor. She milked some parts of Downs' endless verbosity and didn't explore other parts, like Downs' defense attorney's preparation. She did do a great job of presenting the challenges (budgetary, etc) faced by law enforcement. I think this book could've been a lot stronger had someone gotten real with Rule and told her it needed to be cut down by a third. It just was not as quick a read as the story involved would have indicated.
Rated by buyers 
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Diane Down's gave me the creeps. As a mother of three myself - it's hard to comprehend how someone could do such a thing. She was a very wierd, wicked, self-serving woman. How she could call herself a 'Christian' was beyond me. They said she read the bible every night??? Not one thing in her life reflected a walk with Christ! The book started out good, got slow and redundant in the middle, but better towards the end. An interesting book that didn't knock my socks off, but worth reading.
Rated by buyers -
This is a riveting and spellbinding book about a woman who let her sick obsessions overrule her heart and her love for her children. It is a story about selfishness and desire. It is about how children become pawns in a world of lust and greed and how they paid the ultimate price. Thankfully, the perpetrator did not evade the justice that will be dealt her here on earth. It made me sad for children who are born into homes where there is no guidance and no love, only madness.
It grabs your attention from the very beginning and steers you through its pages with the sickening realization of where this woman's obsession is leading her. It is frightening that someone can walk around in our society without gathering any attention until it is too late.
This story reminds me a lot of the story of Susan Smith who also killed her children for "love" or her idea of love.
Now if we could just find a way to prevent it from happening again. And of course the sad thing is we can't or won't so someday there will be another story like this, and then another.
I recommend it but it will leave you both sad and angry. Ann Rule, as always, did a very good job getting inside the head of her subject, which makes the story come alive. She won't disappoint her readers with this book. She is right on target.
Rated by buyers 
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I bought this book after seeing the movie. I didn't get very far into the book before I lost interest because the movie has been on so much and is pretty much exactly based on this book.
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