Ann Rules

Although true crime and crime fiction seldom overlap, there are notable exceptions. One of these is for author Ann Rule who has managed to make a deep and meaningful mark in both genres. Occasionally, at the same time.

Rule was born on this day in 1935 in Lowell, Michigan. According to the author’s Web site, she comes by her interest in criminal justice naturally. “Both her grandfather and her uncle were Michigan sheriffs, her cousin was a Prosecuting Attorney and another uncle was the Medical Examiner.” Rule herself was, for a time, a Seattle policewoman, though she’s been a full-time crime writer since 1969.

Rule is the author of 20 books and 1,400 articles, though none has been as celebrated as her first book, The Stranger Beside Me, which, arguably, helped define the true-crime genre. Its subject is serial killer Ted Bundy, who once worked with Rule at a Seattle, Washington, crisis center. The author’s friendship with Bundy during the time of his then-unsolved killing spree certainly gave Rule an inside track but, as in all of her true crime tales, what makes the book really work is the author’s openhearted approach. She never postures, never preaches, but just brings us the facts in a way that manages to be respectful, while still evoking a sense of place and pace. Or, as Annabelle magazine put it in setting up an interview: “What sets [Ann Rule] apart from others in the genre is her ability to choose cases that are not only stories of horrific violence but also fascinating psychological portraits of the victims and murderers.”

This month sees the publication of No Regrets, which is volume 11 in her Ann Rule’s Crime Files series.

Happy birthday, Ann!