Rating: 
Summary: Stranger Beside Me
Review: I am Ann Rules' most devoted fan. She can do no wrong. Her word is gospel. I have everything she's ever written. Keep up the good work Ann. See you at Whidbey Island Writer's Conference in 2003...maybe with a true crime book of my own by then! Love you!
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: As having an interest in true crime novels, I thought that this woull provide an insite not often seen of serial killers - the viewpoint of someone who knew the killer.
This book seemed to drag on and on of how the author could not believe that the Ted she knew would do the thing he had been accused of. Even his escapes from jail were given reasons for being normal.
While it was a well written book, there was just too much sympathy for the accused, making it a rather biased book.
It was worth reading, but don't look to this book to give any insight into why the accused acted in the manner he did.
Rating:
Summary: Truly Terrifying
Review: I had heard of this book, of course; had wanted to read it for years, so when this 20th anniversary edition came out, I decided to give it a go. I had a pre-conceived notion: OK, this is going to be a really interesting biography of Ted Bundy, with the added attraction of having been written by a former dear friend. Fast, easy crime reading, I thought. I was wrong. This story is so chilling, so frightening, it grips you in the gut. Ann Rule has simply stated the facts. No sensationalism, no gratuitous gore, no psychobabble. Just the facts. As they happend. And even though the reader might think of Ted Bundy as "old news," and even though he was executed in 1989, this book makes one check to see that the doors and windows are locked. There are actually two stories here: one describes the gradual disintegration of a seemingly normal, affable, brilliant man into a sexual psychopath so evil, so methodical in his vicious killings, that one wonders if he was at all human. The other story is that of Ann Rule herself, a decent, hard-working, middle-aged mother of four who meets and befriends a nice young man working beside her in a crisis clinic. A man she regards as a younger brother; a man she views as a close and trusted friend. The slow but inexorable realization on Rule's part that this man is in fact an unspeakably violent serial killer is as painful to read as it was for her to experience. Each victim is described in terms of such respect and such anguish that even a family member, I think, can feel that his or her daughter has been given a chance to shine, a chance to be more than a victim, more than a nameless number (8th girl killed, and so forth). The poignancy of these girls' very human preoccupations and lives serves to outline the contrasting horror in even more detail. That is why Rule does not have to defile the victims with intricate detail. The contrast between their young lives and their terrible deaths is enough in itself. Rule's new Afterward, written in 2000, is fascinating. She has not "recovered and moved on"; there is no real "closure." She has come to accept that the incomprehensible contrast between Ted the Dear Friend and Ted the Monster will never leave her, and will never be fully explained, no matter how many facts she sifts, no matter how much progress has been made in understanding the sexual psychopath. It is her fate to have known Bundy in all his skins; it is our privilege to read her account of it.
Rating: 
Summary: Stranger than fiction
Review: Despite being a huge crime reader, I don't usually read true crime. This book was recommended by so many crime fiction readers that I thought I'd check it out. I was interested in how one of the most noteworthy real life serial killers compared against his fictional counterparts. Many aspects of Ted Bundy's life of crime really are the stuff of novels, and no doubt have inspired many. Women of a specific and similar physical appearance disappearing all over the country are like something from a James Patterson book. Like Hannibal Lecter, Ted Bundy had formal psychiatric training and was experienced at administering the same psychological tests that were given to him in prison. He is cunning enough to escape prison, and adept at procuring fake identities and eluding the police. No maladjusted misfit, he was personable, charming, attractive to women - while capable of chilling rages where, in a single night, he could savage 4 different women, racing, bloodstained, from one college dorm to another. Much of the book is about Bundy's trials and time in prison - details absent from most fiction, which usually conveniently end after the perpetrator's discovery. While Bundy himself could hold his own as a fictional character, what really differs is the lack of any cohesive protaganist. While many individual police worked long and hard on his cases over the years, there was no idea for a long while that many of his attacks were connected, a situation that surely could not have escaped, for instance, a Lucas Davenport. Once the police finally manage to convict him - on only three of a known 35 and suspected 150 murders - the suspense moves to Bundy's fight against his execution date, which is postponed many times. Bundy repeatedly gains time by promising to confess - although already convicted, confessions to the any of the dozens of outstanding suspicious disappearances are a powerful bargaining tool for him due to the closure that it brings to these victim's relatives. The thought of so many real families in such uncertain agony - some of them, still - is very upsetting. Whether Ms Rule's unique persective on the Ted Bundy case actually adds anything to the story is hard to say - despite their long friendship, she seems as baffled as everyone else as to how or why the kind and sensitive guy she knew could be a brutal and sadistic killer. Everyone who reads this by now knows the facts of the case, and it's hard to share any of her initial support of Bundy. This book's effectiveness is its thoroughness in showing the untidy fringes and loose ends that accompany real life crime - it's a scary, thought-provoking, and worthwhile read.
Rating:
Summary: The Stranger Surrounds Me ... Seattle circa 1973
Review: I was a fifteen-year-old girl in the South Seattle area during the "Terror of Ted". I ran with a crowd of other fourteen and fifteen year old girls who would freely hitchike around the Seattle area back then, usually in search of the next adventure ahead. Our travels took us way North, into Lynnwood, far east, into Issaquah and North Bend, and usually, into the U-District in Seattle. I remember being really afraid ... afraid to stick the old thumb out, even while in a gaggle of girls doing the same thing. I remember being really afraid whenever a VW slowed - we'd all squeal and wave the driver on. All this fear had been, of course, hammered into me by the news, by the schools, and by well-meaning family. But when you're young, you feel you truly are invincible, and that nothing can hurt you! And so, the group of us who hitched, were determined to not get into any car driven by a man named "Ted". We felt "safe" if we'd ask the driver his name. Foolish is what we really were. And of course, we all wore our hair long, straight and parted down the middle. It was the mid seventies. Every girl did! When the furor over "Ted", who'd by this time, moved on to Utah (and ultimately Florida) began to subside, the hitchiking lot of us finally wised up, and began to have our boyfriends drive us, or got our own drivers' licenses. This book re-lived for me the terror of those days, as a young girl, a frequent visitor to the U-District and Lake Sammamish Park off I-90 back then myself. I was never approached, nor were any of the girls I hung with, by the wavy-haired, good looking stranger with the eager smile. But with every brief introduction to yet another driver, another group of guys going nowhere in particular, I'll never forget the underlying fear that surrounded me. Those summers of Ted. Because we just never knew where or when he would appear next. Ann Rule captures this wonderfully in her 20th anniversary update.
Rating:
Summary: She really did show the "whole man".
Review: Before reading this book, I hadn't really thought of Ted Bundy as anything more than a monster, a diabolical murderer of innocent girls. But Ann Rule made me see him as a real person, just like you and me -- one whom I might have liked (though, admittedly, my hair is short and parted on the side).
Rating:
Summary: What do you do if your friend is a serial killer?
Review: In 1971, struggling writer Ann Rule worked the late shift at Seattle's Crisis Clinic, making the acquaintance of a young man named Ted Bundy. Little did she know that her friend Ted was behind all the disappearances of all the missing girls that she was writing about. Soon it became obvious that her beloved friend was a serial killer. The story covers Ted's years at large as well as the author's personal reservations and feelings regarding her friend. An insider's story of a truly horrific murderer and his many victims.
Rating:
Summary: When friends like these, who needs enemies?
Review: Ann Rule was just beginning her writing career when she met Ted Bundy, with whom she volunteered nights at a crisis hotline. Ted was ambitious, gentle, and sweet. Little did she know that he was the same "Ted" that she was helping to track cross-country, the "Ted" who killed young girls. Ann Rule is the consummate true-crime author, and this is her most personal, and shocking, book.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing!
Review: Excellent book by Ann Rule. I just reread this story and the updates are very interesting in the newest edition. Ann gives us insight into her world during the beginning of her career as a true crime writer. The overwhelming odds that she would actually have a personal connection with the soon to be infamous Ted Bundy are incredible. Her perspective combined with her experience and her knowledge of Bundy both before, during and after his killing years is absolutely intriguing. Most remarkable to me is that a woman with her background and education did not for a long time accept that Bundy was the murderer. This makes my world feel a little scarier...who do we really know??? Beyond telling us the story of one of America's best known serial killers, we are also learn that the monsters don't always look like monsters and may in fact be one of our best friends...
Rating:
Summary: What if you found that your friend was a serial killer?
Review: I'm always amazed that Ann Rule seems to be more often identified as the author of Small Sacrifices (also a good book) when I've always thought that The Stranger Beside Me was by far her best effort. Imagine that you have been closely following an investigation of a string of murders for several months: talking to the detectives involved, perhaps planning to write a book or magazine article. Then, you realize that someone you know, someone that you like and trust, is probably the murderer. That's the story of this book -- not the gruesome murders or the sick mind of Ted Bundy, but realizing that your friend is a serial killer. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the true crime genre.
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