Rating: 
Summary: I was dissappointed
Review: I'm going to give Anne Rule one more try because for years I've been told that her's were the best in the true crime business. Perhaps I just picked up the one weak book in her collection. Debora Green is an unpleasant woman and a killer but it's clear from the start that Ms. Rule's personal feelings about her have adversely impacted the book. From the first chapter there is a long litany of Debora BAD and Mike GOOD language. Even Debora's youthful looks are described as coarse while Mike's are called fine and delicate. Appearance doesn't dictate character. I tired of the saintly presentation of Mike. No-one is THAT perfect. Rule doesn't even try to explain why Debora was so angry at her husband all the time. Finally when I got the page were Rules criticizes Debora for "wasting her mind" reading novels and yes--true crime books I had to put the book down.
Bitter Harvest has a huge amount of nicely done descrpition but it's too lopsided. A hideous crime was committed and two children are dead. I have to believe that the story behind their deaths is more complicated than the simple version presented in this book.
Rating: 
Summary: If It Sounds Like Horses, Don't Think Zebra's
Review: I thought that the book was very well written on the facts that were presented. Maybe Ann presented Mike a little too well. But in the face of something so evil I can see the fault of this. Debora Green has not faced up to the fact of ANY of her faulty behaviors. NONE, ABSOLTUELY NONE! She thinks she is perfect. Mike admitted to his short comings. If Deora would have admitted to just ONE of her faults I would have a lot more sympathy for her.
Law Enforcement is not perfect. However, they do not make things up. They do not make up lab reports (ricin antibodies) or what a highly trained canine, Avon, detects (accelerants).
It seems as though there is a proponderous amount of evidence to prove that Debora comitted these crimes and I feel she should cop to it. Another words...be honest! If she is truly concerned about her daughter *Lissa, then she should be totally honest! And deal with it from there.
Ann Rule wrote as true an account as was possible from an objective stand point as one human being can. Remember...There is no reality only perspective.
Rating: 
Summary: Rule rules
Review: Rule is well-known for her true crime writing and justifiably so. Ever since Truman Capote popularized the form in In Cold Blood, true crime has become a popular genre.This harrowing book tells the story of Dr. Debora Green, a very bright Kansas physician whose life unraveled into a nightmare of murder and virtual insanity. After her trial for the murder of two of her children and the attempted murder of her husband, Michael Farrar, psychiatrists attempted to answer why something like this could have happened. Their diagnosis was that Dr. Green had a limited ego, was a very immature person with the emotional responses of a small child. Ostensibly, she was able to function quite well, until her marriage and the pressures of raising a family began to stress her life. She had an IQ of 165 and had zipped through medical school, married a brilliant cardiologist, and borne three children. The family lived in a large house in the Kansas City suburbs. By the end of the story Debora had become a violent and irrational monster who had driven away her husband, as she descended into a maelstrom of alcohol, drugs and invective. In hindsight, a house fire that destroyed an earlier home was probably her doing. The final straw was apparently her husband's affair with Celeste Walker, a nurse whose physician husband had committed suicide. The family had returned from a long-awaited vacation to South America, when Mike became deathly ill. He could keep no food down and suffered constant diarrhea. His condition puzzled the clinicians because the symptoms did not seem to match anything in their knowledge base. The only thing they could think of was that perhaps Mike had picked up some kind of virulent bug while traveling, but none of the others who had been on the trip had suffered anything beyond the normal traveler's stomach problems that quickly disappeared. Bouts of his illness always seemed to come after he had been released from the hospital and had eaten food served by his wife. After what seemed - to me - an interminable period he began to suspect that perhaps Debora might be trying to poison him. One afternoon when she was out, he searched her purse and discovered several packages of Castor beans. Warnings on the package labels revealed that these beans contain a very toxic poison called Ricin. Normally, the beans could be swallowed whole without much difficulty because they had such a hard shell, and the beans would pass through the system without causing any ill effects, but if crushed, they could be terribly destructive. Mike also realized his wife had just finished an Agatha Christie novel in which the murder is committed using Ricin. Several months later, a fire, clearly arson, broke out in their house. Mike had moved out in preparation for a divorce. Two of the children died, trapped in their bedrooms by a fire, fed with accelerants, that blocked access to the hall and the stairs. The responding police and firemen were immediately struck by the mother's bizarre behavior, talking of her children in the past tense, even before anyone knew whether they had been killed or not. Eventually, she confessed to all charges and escaped the death penalty with a guilty plea. A truly tragic story spellbindingly told by Rule, a master of the genre.
Rating: 
Summary: Not up to Ann Rule's standards
Review: I love Ann Rule's books, but this book is so biased. I like FACTS simply presented. Especially since I had never even heard of this case, I don't like a writer presenting facts trying to sway the reader one way or the other. There is an underlying tone of bias that becomes more prevalent as the book goes on. I thought of another Ann Rule book that I read that was a little biased, but not like this. She describes Mike Farrar as handsome. Personally, if he is (which he must have something for women to be drawn to him)he must not be very photogenic because the photos in the book show him as rather homely. As the book goes on, I found myself really distrusting and disliking Mike Farrar and and to an extent, his girlfriend, Mrs. David Hacker (Celeste in the book)
Mike says he's a loving father and wouldn't leave his kids alone. But, he sure didn't mind leaving his 6 year old virtually alone while he went to the next village to put the moves on another man's wife. He says he was afraid for his kids because his wife was a crazy alcoholic, but he sure didn't mind leaving them with her when he moved out. He obviously didn't care much about Celeste, because after her husband's suspicious suicide, he couldn't even remember if he had her kids' names right and forgot that she wasn't divorced, but that she was a widow. Celeste left her family photos up to show her kids that "their family mattered." Yet, she used her husband's funeral as her coming out party, coming public with her affair with a married man, laughing and carrying on. Then, she has her boyfriend coming to dinner before he was cold in his grave! I was 12 years old when my father died suddenly from a heart attack. I can't imagine how hard it would have been if my mother had introduced a new man and had him staying over a month later! My gosh, had the woman no compassion? I was immediately suspicious of Mike in ref. to the fire. His first thoughts when he saw the house fire was of how he'd replace the material possessions -- he didn't even know if his family was dead or alive at that time. And, instead of comforting his distraught wife, he screamed at her "What have you done?" Okay, that made me think he may have set her up. I wouldn't be surprised if he was doing things to make her go nuts or make people think she was. I thought Celeste was innocent until the fire. Oh, and then, he and his girlfriend go to the charred house not long after his children's bodies were removed to rescue his precious wine collection. Obviously, Dr. Farrar used his charms on Ann Rule, because with Debora's emotions, she uses rough language and criticizes her behavior after her children die. However, I thought her behavior was much more reasonable than Mike's was. While his children were burning to death, he phoned his girlfriend rather than trying to comfort his wife or save the kids. He tells everyone his wife was nuts and wouldn't even let her stay with him. What a jerk! But, everything Mike does is explained in gentle terms. I love Ann Rule, but she really flunked with this book. Did Debora do it? Maybe. Was Mike involved? Quite Possibly. Was Celeste? Perhaps. Will the full truth ever come out? Probably not. However, I do believe Debora did have some major problems. But, Mike Farrar is an adulterous womanizer who seems to love being the center of attention. There is NO excuse for adultery. None. He wasted no time going after Debora, Celeste, Carolyn, or anyone else and when he had his fill, he dropped them just as quickly. He seems to have a pattern of going after other men's wives. Debora and Celeste were both married when he put the moves on them. Debora needed help, but I believe Mike needs psychologic help even worse. He's got some major issues. Mike seems to care about one person only -- himself. The one person that I feel the most sorry for is Kate Farrar who is called "Lissa" in the book. The poor kid went through a lot. I hope she can make some sort of sense of it all when she is an adult. I'd like to find another book on this -- maybe it would be more factual and less biased.
Rating:
Summary: Ann Rule's Books are the Best!!
Review: Ann Rule's books are the best!! Ann Rule definitely has a talent for roping in the reader in the very first few pages and her characters seem to jump out of the pages into your life. Ann Rule's books take you behind the curtains of the criminal mind. I think this book is a reflection of how drug and alcohol abuse, revenge and selfishness can consume a person whole and entire families no matter what social status they come from, but it is so tragically sad and unbelievable. The story in places is so enraging for the reader you feel like the book itself will ignite. It is hard to read because it is a such a tragic account, but reading to the end of the book is definitely worth it as it provides interesting information and facts.
Rating:
Summary: Riveting but disturbing
Review: This was a difficult book to rate - it was riveting and fascinating to read, but Rule's one-sided sympathy with Mike was hard to take. Frankly, I think he may have been guilty. He clearly is a user - he married Deborah in large part because he was impressed with her earnings and achievements, and then he expected her to transform herself to suit him - ie, he valued neatness, order and schedules, so she was a bad person because she did not. Clearly, her fall from confidence and sanity during the marriage had something to do with having a husband who conveyed that she was not ok as is, but needed to change to meet his standards to be acceptable to receive his love. He was an adulterer who used both Deborah and Celeste, and seemed more concerned about his own feelings and problems than any danger to his children. Which makes me wonder, like other reviewers, if he didn't set Deborah up for a fall because he was tired of being married to her, especially based upon his reaction at the time of the fire. Also, all the emphasis on handsome v. ugly bugged me, since I didn't think Mike was handsome, on the inside or the out.
It would be fascinating to know the real story - which I feel is still hidden beneath the facts in the book.
Rating:
Summary: Not A Feel Good Book
Review: It's been several years since I've read an Ann Rule book, but I remember liking her writing style. So, when this story didn't get off to a running start, I trusted Rule to have chosen an interesting story to tell and knew it would soon turn into a riveting tale. I was not disappointed. The cliché, "you can not make this stuff up", applies here. This is not a feel good story, but it's a very interesting read.
Rating:
Summary: Ann Rule, Rules
Review: Loved the book...Like the "victim" wife in Rule's book, "Last Dance" (who I just wanted to slap) I wanted to slap Green's husband for leaving those kids with her for a minute. This book is keenly written, and it is yet another book by her that I could not put down.. Great story..Way worth the time and money.
Rating:
Summary: Boring Harvest
Review: The book was a bit boring and while I have no pity for Debora Green, it was her husband Mike that I wanted to slap. I don't understand how this man left his children with her for one minute. Clearly she was out of her mind from the very begining of their marriage and instead of portraying him as a weak little nerd, Rule would have you believe that Mike was the amazing Superman.
Rating:
Summary: Rule rules
Review: Rule is well-known for her true crime writing and justifiably so. Ever since Truman Capote popularized the form in In Cold Blood, true crime has become a popular genre. This harrowing book tells the story of Dr. Debora Green, a very bright Kansas physician whose life unraveled into a nightmare of murder and virtual insanity. After her trial for the murder of two of her children and the attempted murder of her husband, Michael Farrar, psychiatrists attempted to answer why something like this could have happened. Their diagnosis was that Dr. Green had a limited ego, was a very immature person with the emotional responses of a small child. Ostensibly, she was able to function quite well, until her marriage and the pressures of raising a family began to stress her life. She had an IQ of 165 and had zipped through medical school, married a brilliant cardiologist, and borne three children. The family lived in a large house in the Kansas City suburbs. By the end of the story Debora had become a violent and irrational monster who had driven away her husband, as she descended into a maelstrom of alcohol, drugs and invective. In hindsight, a house fire that destroyed an earlier home was probably her doing. The final straw was apparently her husband's affair with Celeste Walker, a nurse whose physician husband had committed suicide. The family had returned from a long-awaited vacation to South America, when Mike became deathly ill. He could keep no food down and suffered constant diarrhea. His condition puzzled the clinicians because the symptoms did not seem to match anything in their knowledge base. The only thing they could think of was that perhaps Mike had picked up some kind of virulent bug while traveling, but none of the others who had been on the trip had suffered anything beyond the normal traveler's stomach problems that quickly disappeared. Bouts of his illness always seemed to come after he had been released from the hospital and had eaten food served by his wife. After what seemed - to me - an interminable period he began to suspect that perhaps Debora might be trying to poison him. One afternoon when she was out, he searched her purse and discovered several packages of Castor beans. Warnings on the package labels revealed that these beans contain a very toxic poison called Ricin. Normally, the beans could be swallowed whole without much difficulty because they had such a hard shell, and the beans would pass through the system without causing any ill effects, but if crushed, they could be terribly destructive. Mike also realized his wife had just finished an Agatha Christie novel in which the murder is committed using Ricin. Several months later, a fire, clearly arson, broke out in their house. Mike had moved out in preparation for a divorce. Two of the children died, trapped in their bedrooms by a fire, fed with accelerants, that blocked access to the hall and the stairs. The responding police and firemen were immediately struck by the mother's bizarre behavior, talking of her children in the past tense, even before anyone knew whether they had been killed or not. Eventually, she confessed to all charges and escaped the death penalty with a guilty plea. A truly tragic story spellbindingly told by Rule, a master of the genre.
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