Heart Full of Lies : A True Story of Desire and Death

Rating:
Summary: Book Full Of Whys
Review: I picked up HEART FULL OF LIES to read while on an airplane trip as I am true crime afficianado, former police science student and survivor of child and partner abuse. As an abuse survivor, I find Liysa Northon's continued assertions that it was necessary for her to murder her third husband, Chris, in order to protect herself and her children, particularly offensive. Please! She had too many other perfectly acceptable and legal options available to her. And for an allegedly, highly intelligent woman, Liysa committed what is arguably one of the most inept and poorly thought-out murders I've ever read about.

What kind of IQ does one need to realize, for instance, that anyone who starts off, fleeing a murder scene, sopping wet, while driving in a heated car for several hours, is not going to still be soaked to the skin by the time she reaches her final destination, unless she's stopped to re-wet herself? Liysa should have stuck to scriptwriting. While her dramatic writing and staging sensibilities were apparently skillful and sharp enough to impress a Hollywood writer, her knowledge of forensics was appallingly deficient.

As a murder scheme that is alleged to have been planned over a period of two years the end result was so rife with dumb inconsistencies between Liysa's story and the actual crime scene evidence, I can only assume she was either too caught up in starring in this real-life drama of her own making to maintain an objective perspective or she wanted to be caught and thought she could bluff her way out. Were I her attorneys I might have gone for an insanity defense, except I also happen to think she should have gotten longer than 12 years. Her lack of remorse for Chris's death as well as her lack of consideration for the devestating potential impacts to her boys leave me with the impression of this woman being one very sociopathically selfish individual. And I also recently read that Liysa, her father and brother have sued Ann Rule for $3.5 million. Hmm? It seems Liysa might still trying to secure that $2 million with which to start Chrysallis, that she couldn't get from her late husband's insurance? But, of course, I could be wrong.

Author, Ann Rule, may not be (in my opinion) the world's best true crime writer, but she is a former policewoman who researches her stories with meticulous care and does not jump to haphazard conclusions; she arrives at her opinions with painstaking, sometimes tedious prudence. Rule tells a compelling, truthful story that does not diverge off into personal speculation over obvious innuendo. Her restraint is admirable as it affords the reader the ability to draw their own conclusions. I derived the feeling that Rule, in the course of researching this case ended up with mixed feelings toward this woman who who was a fine writer and incompetent criminal whereas Rule is a fine criminologist and maybe not quite as good a writer as the subject she was writing about. My guess is Rule may have thought at some point that had Liysa not committed murder and had instead pursued screenplay writing, she might have one day written a screenplay adaptation of one of Rule's books...

As to review posted to Amazon.com by a member of the DeWitt family, what does anyone expect? Yes, I think their daughter / sister is guilty of first-degree murder, but how many of us would be any less supportive of a relative who'd done the same thing? I feel pity for both the DeWitt and Northon families who have suffered tremendously because of Lisya's horrific actions. But most of all I feel sorry for Papako and Bjorn, the two most innocent victims in all this. It is a best-of-a-bad-situation blessing that they have Papako's father and his wife willing rear the brothers together, and a friend of Chris's to remind Bjorn that his "Mydad" had many qualities worth remembering and emulating.

Rating:
Summary: disappointing for ann rule fans
Review: I've read and enjoyed all of Ann Rule's books, so when I saw this on the front table of the bookstore I bought it without even opening it up. Everyone knows what to expect from an Ann Rule book, right? Unfortunately, not this time. As another reader pointed out, the type is huge... always a bad sign of padding. It actually jars you when you open the book to start reading. What, it HAD to be 350+ pages? It's a compelling story but could have been half as long. The editor really let her down on this one. Choppy, disjointed, repetitive. Back and forth in time and place. Very hard to follow, and the writing is never smooth. Wait for it in paperback. Really.

Rating:
Summary: It doesnt even rate one star!
Review: Readers...if you want a biased account of this case, go ahead and buy this book. Why wasn't Liysa's story told? this was my ongoing thought as I read this sensationalist book. And why does Rule so aggressively set out to paint Liysa as the villian? Why is she so judgemental? She doesnt even consider the possiblity that Liysa was abused. This book is clearly based upon information soley from Chris Northon's family and freinds. Certainly Rule can feel compassion for this family's loss, but why does she set out to destroy this woman in the process? Why is she quick to excuse Chris's worst traits and portray him as a saintly victim? One reason: her version SELLS.
I also find it hypocritical that she dedicates the book to Chris's son so that he may one day "know the truth". Gee, who gave Ann Rule the scales? And how can she make a judgement when she only knows one side of the story? How dare her dedicate this book to his son...this book will haunt and follow this boy for the rest of his life. Does Rule care that she is destroying his image of his mother? No.
There are huge gaps in the information given, leaving the reader questioning why she elaborated on some things and skips over other info ( info that would not support her biased theories).
Lastly, I work in the mental health field and am insulted by her amatuerish diagnosis of Liysa. She labels her a "sociopath". Newsflash: Sociopaths are not good mothers. And this is something even Rule could not dismiss, the fact that Liysa was a devoted and loving mother. BR>What a disappointment. I have previously read all of Rule's books but I won't read another.
I certainly am questioning everything that Rule has ever written, after reading this poorly written biased account of this case.I think the true story (the one that featured both sides, fairly) would have been much more interesting.

Rating:
Summary: A fair portrait of a killer
Review: Throughout the years since Ann Rule's first blockbuster, THE STRANGER BESIDE ME, I have been pleased to note that she has not stooped to cheap sensationalism to sell books. On the contrary, driven by the desire to tell the stories of some of humankind's most heartless criminals, she doggedly researches her subject and, in the end, presents a fair portrait of a killer.

In this particular case, Ms. Rule dances around the subject of domestic abuse without judging whether it existed here. Liysa DeWitt Northon claimed she was a victim of constant abuse from her husband, Chris. His friends and neighbors vehemently declaimed the idea as absurd. Since he is dead --- at Liysa's hand --- and she refused interviews with the author, the truth remains Liysa's secret.

HEART FULL OF LIES chronicles Liysa Northon's marriages, divorces, and ultimate slaying of her third husband. She always came out of a marriage financially better than she went into it. Her first and second husbands quietly acceded to her bullying demands, a tactic that she found worked well to her advantage. But she ran into a wall when it came time to get rid of her third husband. Chris could not face losing contact with Bjorn, the child Liysa cajoled him into creating with her. His deep love for his son surprised even him in its ferocity, and his apparent intractability may have been what cost him his life. Had he given Liysa an easy out, would she have let him live? We will never know now.

Instead, it seems that this highly intelligent and very capable woman embarked on a campaign to impugn her husband's reputation almost from the very start. Claiming that he choked her in a drunken rage, hit her in a drug-induced haze, and terrorized her at every turn, she convinced many of her friends that Chris was a monster and that her once ideal marriage was now a nightmare. In addition, her insatiable appetite for real estate --- and Chris's refusal to feed it --- drove her to look for someone else who would. While she squeezed everything out of Chris that she could, she was methodically engaged in a plan to get him out of her life. But she hit a snag. As his ex-wife, she would lose the perks that came with being a pilot's wife. And she knew, as his widow, that she would lose nothing. She wanted it all. What she got, in the end, was prison.

Having been on the fringes firsthand of a murder case that Ann Rule wrote about, I can attest to her accurate reporting, coupled with a kindhearted compassion for the victims and the families whose lives are forever disrupted. HEART FULL OF LIES proves that Ms. Rule is still capable of writing blockbusters.

--- Reviewed by Kate Ayers