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July 30, 2015

An Unforgettable Dinner with Ann Rule

There are certain moments in my adventures in the publishing business that stand out --- ones that I will remember for a long time. Amongst many evenings of author meetings and book discussions, one dinner in July 2012 is certainly among the most memorable.

During ThrillerFest in New York, the annual conference for thriller authors and fans, I went to a dinner with what ended up being a perfect blend of author personalities: Linwood Barclay, Lisa Gardner, Mark Sullivan, and the now-late Ann Rule (who died on July 26, 2015 of a heart attack at the age of 83). Each author at that table was a seasoned writer, as well as a master of conversation, but we all knew that the star of the group was Ann. She transformed true-crime writing, which had been a male-dominated genre until she started writing and made it more mainstream. For many writers at Thrillerfest, 1980’s THE STRANGER BESIDE ME had been a catalyst for their careers. For those of us at dinner, to spend an evening in her company was like having dinner with thriller royalty.

But if we were having dinner with royalty, Ann Rule was the most low-key royal you could find. For someone who made a career out of writing books about horrible and sadistic killers, she was the exact opposite of her subjects. Her compassionate and friendly personality made me realize why Ted Bundy would maintain a connection with her even after his imprisonment. Among all the talk of writing, researching and uncovering famous cases, she was both genuine and down-to-earth. As we discussed unsolved cases that night, her takes on them were utterly fascinating.

Prior to that evening, I had never read any of her books. I picked up a copy of THE STRANGER BESIDE ME at the ThrillerFest bookstore the next day and got it signed by her --- a signature I now treasure even more in my book collection. I spent the next few weeks of that summer reading its 600-plus pages, transfixed by the sadistic, twisted world of Ted Bundy and the strange connection that tied him to Rule over several decades. I was so caught up in the story that I came close to missing train stops and spent entire evenings engrossed in it. Yet for all of its brilliance, readers are lucky that it was but the first work of Rule’s long career of chilling analyses of the darkest persons in our society. She gave us a rare insight into their minds and their motives.

I hoped to see Ann Rule again at ThrillerFest, but as her health declined over the next few years, she never made it back. Instead, along with her battery of work, I will always have a magical memory of a night with a legend, who was just as comfortable talking about serial killers as she was splitting a slice of coconut cream pie with Lisa Gardner.