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Summary: In the Name of Love: and Other True Cases
Review: I have read all of Ann Rule's books and thoroughly enjoy them. However, this book seems to lack objectivity. Jerry is so good and Steve so bad. Jerry is so tall and Steve is so short. He even loses stature as the book progresses but if you will notice in the wedding pictures they seem to be the same height. Well written, as usual, but I just wish I could have been surer of the facts.
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Summary: This book does not give enough background on main characters
Review: I read this book in much the same way as I have read Ann Rule's other books: fast. While I enjoy her books, Ann Rule does not define the main characters here as much as she has in say, "Everything She Ever Wanted." For instances, why did Jerry Harris get his nose broken three times if he was such a saint? Why didn't Ms. Rule do more research into the character of Steve? I would have preferred to look at this story from the angle of how someone is set up to be a good guy, a scapegoat, and how they play it out over their lives. I was irritated overall by Ann Rules one-dimensional view of everyone. And I did not like being made a part of Susan and Jerry's schemes to outwit others as part of a cute joke.
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Summary: Ann Rule is a little one sided here......
Review: I usually enjoy Ann Rule's books and have a hard time putting them down. However, in this story of a California millionaire who is murdered by a "friend"/business partner, I find that Ann Rule is a little biased in her opinion of Jerry Harris, the victim in this story. I myself found him to be yes, at times compassionate and generous to the less fortunate, but 99% of the time, I found him to be a complete show off, very shrewd, not all that honest, and greedy. I also found his "poor" wife to be somewhat of a gold digger. I just cant see this beautiful young lady interested in this man for anything other than his money, although she tries very hard to show that, that is not the case...... OK, right!!! This man definitley did not deserve to be murdered but I just did not find him as saintly as Ann Rule portrayed him to be. A real good mystery story though and it is pretty obvious right from the start who did it. Once again, Ann has done better.
Rating:
Summary: Ann Rule is a little one sided here......
Review: I usually enjoy Ann Rule's books and have a hard time putting them down. However, in this story of a California millionaire who is murdered by a "friend"/business partner, I find that Ann Rule is a little biased in her opinion of Jerry Harris, the victim in this story. I myself found him to be yes, at times compassionate and generous to the less fortunate, but 99% of the time, I found him to be a complete show off, very shrewd, not all that honest, and greedy. I also found his "poor" wife to be somewhat of a gold digger. I just cant see this beautiful young lady interested in this man for anything other than his money, although she tries very hard to show that, that is not the case...... OK, right!!! This man definitley did not deserve to be murdered but I just did not find him as saintly as Ann Rule portrayed him to be. A real good mystery story though and it is pretty obvious right from the start who did it. Once again, Ann has done better.
Rating:
Summary: not the best book by Ann Rule
Review: I've read several Ann Rule true crime novels, and most have been either good or excellent. However "In the Name of Love: ..." is a comparative disappointment. All the hallmarks of Ann Rule (fine writing, excellent research, and a remarkable true story) are absent from this book. And perhaps worse, in the main story Ann Rule writes as if she has transformed herself into some trashy romance novelist ... complete with glowing comments of a handsome husband (I guess the photos in the book weren't very kind) by an adoring wife. Very saccharine, to a sickening extent.In this book we have one main story ("In the Name of Love") followed by a few short stories. The main story is about a middle-aged entrepreneur who gets killed, and his young wife goes through hell afterwards until the killers are brought to justice. Compared to Ann Rule's wonderful works such as "Dead by Sunset" the story is relatively flat, and Ann doesn't do much justice in "getting into the heads" of the killers. It is as if this story was written in haste. Worse, the short stories are little more than collections of Seattle-area police reports from the 1960s/1970s. Yes, the stories are strange and horrific. But they all have a "Reader's Digest" feel about them. Is the book all bad? Well, no. As with all Ann Rule books "In the Name of Love..." is very readable. Or rather, it is a fast read. It certainly makes for a harmless time-filler at the beach or on an airplane. But really, Ann Rule has done much better. Bottom line: certainly not terrible, but a thoroughly forgettable reading experience.
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Summary: not the best book by Ann Rule
Review: not her best and I wonder if she should not have written it at all since she obviously didn't have enough material for a real book. She just keeps harping on the good guys being so good and the bad guys being so bad without much detail to back it up. Sad. I thought I-5 Killer, Dead by Sunset, and Everything she ever Wanted were fabulous.
Rating: 
Summary: Another book I couldn't put down
Review: This is not only the story of an avaricious sociopath, it is also the story of a woman who, for almost eight years, experienced and survived adversity most of us cannot even begin to imagine. This woman lost almost everything that mattered to her, but not for a moment did she lose hope, courage, or the sense of right and wrong. The villains in this saga possessed none of these values, and to those who say that this book is not objective, I will tell them that it is hard to be objective when you are writing about the senseless murder of such an obviously kind and generous man that most of us would have been proud to know.
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