Rating: 
Summary: Good Early Ann
Review: "The Want Ad Killer" represents good early Ann Rule when, for whatever reason, she wrote as Andy Stack. It is the frightening tale of Harvey Carignan, a serial killer who terrorized young women in both the Seattle and Twin Cities during the late '70s. The all too apt title refers to a teenage girl who was abducted after answering a "planted" classified ad. "WAK" is short, concise, no nonsense true crime. It is told as a police story, with little courtroom drama or legal maneuvering. There are also none of the longer, more involved sub plots of the authoress' later stories such as "And Never Let Her Go" or "Everything She Ever Wanted", making this a good choice for readers unfamiliar with her work. For the few Ann fans that have yet to read "WAK", don't think twice. A word of warning: The Ann Rule rule is in effect. Do not look at the centerfold photos or the book's cover. Far too much is revealed therein. Keep yourself in suspense for as long as possible. Parents of teenage girls will keep their daughters locked up after reading this one.
Rating:
Summary: Good Early Ann
Review: "The Want Ad Killer" represents good early Ann Rule when, for whatever reason, she wrote as Andy Stack. It is the frightening tale of Harvey Carignan, a serial killer who terrorized young women in both the Seattle and Twin Cities during the late '70s. The all too apt title refers to a teenage girl who was abducted after answering a "planted" classified ad. "WAK" is short, concise, no nonsense true crime. It is told as a police story, with little courtroom drama or legal maneuvering. There are also none of the longer, more involved sub plots of the authoress' later stories such as "And Never Let Her Go" or "Everything She Ever Wanted", making this a good choice for readers unfamiliar with her work. For the few Ann fans that have yet to read "WAK", don't think twice. A word of warning: The Ann Rule rule is in effect. Do not look at the centerfold photos or the book's cover. Far too much is revealed therein. Keep yourself in suspense for as long as possible. Parents of teenage girls will keep their daughters locked up after reading this one.
Rating: 
Summary: First time Ann Rule reader
Review: Ann Rule wrote this book in 1983. My only complaint is there is no update on the case since 1983. Otherwise, the book is excellent of course, since Ann Rule is a genius at crime writing. In 1972 Laura Leslie Brock disappeared while hitchhiking in Washington state. Her body was later found. Mary Miller read the newspaper story to her 15 year old daughter because they always talked about these kind of things so the daughter would know about the world. How horrible when in 1973 the daughter read a want ad for a job and agreed to meet someone, who turned out to be involved in the Laura Leslie Brock murder! You won't be able to put this book down. And it doesn't get too involved in the court case either. Ann Rule's later books might be more well crafted but this one has genius written all over it too.
Rating:
Summary: Want-Ad Killer Holds Interest
Review: Ann Rule wrote this book in 1983. My only complaint is there is no update on the case since 1983. Otherwise, the book is excellent of course, since Ann Rule is a genius at crime writing. In 1972 Laura Leslie Brock disappeared while hitchhiking in Washington state. Her body was later found. Mary Miller read the newspaper story to her 15 year old daughter because they always talked about these kind of things so the daughter would know about the world. How horrible when in 1973 the daughter read a want ad for a job and agreed to meet someone, who turned out to be involved in the Laura Leslie Brock murder! You won't be able to put this book down. And it doesn't get too involved in the court case either. Ann Rule's later books might be more well crafted but this one has genius written all over it too.
Rating: 
Summary: Rule's early work: Not her best....
Review: As with The Lust Killer, this reissue of a book that Rule apparently wrote, under the pen name of Andy Stack, is very weak in comparison to her later work.She skims over details here that later in her writing she would have included. The Courtroom scene is rather dull in this book and in the other resissues, though I suppose Courtroom scenes are inherently dull when viewing them. Still, in her later work, Rule is able to keep Courtroom scenes lively. Not here! Upon finishing this book, I felt quite disappointed. It simply isn't Rule at her best. I'd have been much happier, as an Ann Rule fan, if she'd rewritten these reissues, rather than dredging them up from the past. I found this a really mediocre read, though I surely wouldn't want to encounter Harvey in a dark alley. I wouldn't want to encounter Harvey in a brightly-lit alley, either. One of my major thoughts while reading this was, "I hope to God Minnesota has changed their felonly conviction laws." I don't recommend this book...not even to Ann Rule fans.
Rating:
Summary: Worth more than three stars, but isn't a five star effort
Review: Documents the life and crimes of serial sex slayer Harvey Carignan, who, if it had not been for an inexcusible flaw in the justice system, was freed to wreak havoc and terror on unsuspecting teenage girls and women. This story certainly makes you wonder which side the law is on - the convicted felon's side or the innocent victims and potential victim's side, and you will question whether the laws really do work. In this case they didn't, and because of this, women and girls who today would be alive are long dead and long forgotten, except by their families and friends. It also documents the genesis of one of the most well respected and influential victim's rights group in America today - Families and Friends of Missing Persons and Violent Crime Victims. This group was started in 1976 by four women, one of whom who had lost her own teenaged daughter to Harvey Carignan's lethal brutality, and is still continuing its important work a quarter of a century later.
Rating:
Summary: Beware of the sexual, deviant psychopaths!!
Review: Harvey Carignan, the sexual psycho killer in Ann Rule's The Want-Ad Killer, is so beyond the description of horrible. He was a manipulator of girls, women, the law, and in an odd way, himself.Using a hammer to 'finish' off his victims after he sodomized them in the most demeaning, dehumanizing possible ways that one can fathom, he left his victims in isolated places -- proclaiming that he was the victim, that people were out to get him as they had always been in his life. This book sickened and saddened me, as the killer himself was a victim, a victim of being unwanted by his mother and himself a likely victim of sexual abuse. Harvey Carignan was a sly and intelligent man, who, like the innocent victims he took off the earth, could have made wonderful, positive contributions to the society at large if only his life was filled with the love and understanding that his victims received while limited with the life given to them. Ann Rule is an articulate interperter when it comes to the mind of the hunter and the hunted. She knows her territory and is very good, I feel, at informing her readers of the kinds of sick people out there. I read Lust Killer, too, which I think is equally tragic in characters and circumstances. I am now reading The I-5 Killer. Her books are filled with psychology, law and the seamy underworld of the criminal. I recommend all her books. Thanks, Ann!
Rating:
Summary: Laura Showalter was my Grandmother
Review: I am the third and youngest grand son of Laura Showalter. Harvy Corignan's should have died in alaska in 1949, but he was to live and kill again. He is now probably dead himself. The last time I spoke to Ann Rule I was told that Harvey was dying of cancer in Minnisota. May he rest in peace, as I know he was never at peace in life on earth.
Rating:
Summary: Laura Showalter was my Grandmother
Review: I am the third and youngest grand son of Laura Showalter. Harvy Corignan's should have died in alaska in 1949, but he was to live and kill again. He is now probably dead himself. The last time I spoke to Ann Rule I was told that Harvey was dying of cancer in Minnisota. May he rest in peace, as I know he was never at peace in life on earth.
Rating:
Summary: BOOK REVIEWED BY ONE OF HARVEYS VICTIMS
Review: IN THE BOOK, "THE WANT ADD KILLER" MY NAME IS GERRY BILLINGS. I HAVE READ THE BOOK AND FOUND IT TO BE VERY FRIGHTENING. THE BOOK DESCRIBES A MONSTER, HARVEY CARIGNAN, WHICH IS SO TRUE! IT WAS VERY HARD FOR ME TO READ ABOUT THE MAN THAT HAS LEFT ME FULL OF FEAR, BUT AT THE SAME TIME, ONCE YOU START TO READ THIS BOOK, YOU JUST CAN NOT PUT IT DOWN. THE SAD THING ABOUT THIS WHOLE STORY IS THAT IT COULD HAVE ALL BEEN PREVENTED IF ONLY HARVEY HAD BEEN FORCED TO PAY FOR HIS CRIME BACK IN 1947, WHICH IS ALSO TOLD ABOUT IN THIS BOOK.
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