Rachel H. (scrapbooker) reviewed A Rose For Her Grave (Crime Files, Vol. 1) on + 147 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
The centerpiece of this chilling collection is the history of Randy Roth, a "modern-day Bluebeard" who specialized in marrying women and then killing them for insurance and Social Security benefits. Rule ( Everything She Ever Wanted ) traces Roth's crimes thoroughly and does an equally complete job of providing information on the investigative side of the story, such as the difficulties of being a female prosecutor. The remaining shorter cases come from Rule's "archives": a rapist returns after eight years in prison to kill the woman who put him there along with her daughter and a neighbor; a jilted husband hires a female "hit person" to kill his estranged wife; a 13-year-old girl disappears after tending to the mobile home of a friend on vacation; a sadistic killer murders a woman, chops her up and disposes of her dismembered body in a slough; and a young, single woman is strangled by a neighbor pretending to be her protector.
Helpful Score: 2
This 513-page book took me some time to finish. I found the first story, which was 341 pages long, compelling reading; perhaps it should have been published as a stand-alone, because the following five short cases were so short and bland they felt like filler. Ann Rule's Crime Files, #1.
Sarah W. (Sarah13Rose) reviewed A Rose For Her Grave (Crime Files, Vol. 1) on + 35 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Bringing together some of the most infamous cases of the Pacific northwest, a collection of true crime accounts includes that of Randy Roth, a man who married and murdered rich women.
