Deadly American Beauty

Beautiful Bride, Dark Secrets, Deadly Love

By: John Glatt

Narrated by: Shaun Grindell

Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Greg DeVillers was a top biotech executive, and Kristin Rossum was embarking on a career in toxicology at the San Diego Medical Examiner's office. They seemed to be happily married, living the American dream. But only months shy of their second anniversary, Kristin found her handsome husband dead from a drug overdose - his corpse sprinkled with rose petals. By his side was their wedding photo. The scene was reminiscent of American Beauty, one of Kristin's favorite movies. Authorities deemed it a suicide.

Until they discovered that the rare poison found in Greg's body was the same poison missing from Kristin's office. Until they discovered the truth about Kristin's lurid affair, about her own longtime drug addiction, and about the personal and professional secrets she would kill to keep hidden - secrets that would ultimately expose the beautiful blonde as the deadly beauty she really was...a deadly American beauty.

©2004 John Glatt (P)2022 Tantor

Interesting TRUE CRIME

Amazing story, even more amazing because it is true! well researched and well written. Fnarration a c little had to follow at times.

A different writing style than I've seen before

First, as others have mentioned, having a British narrator was a bit bizarre. Because it's an audio book, your brain typically creates it's own visual version of the story it's hearing... making up what it thinks the victim might look like, the perpetrator, the crime scene, etc., etc., especially if it's a story/persons/places you've never heard of/seen before. Having said that, all I could picture was the crime scene in some bungalow type house somewhere on the outskirts of London. lol Crazy, I know, but it's the risk you run when choosing a British guy to narrate a story that took place in California!

Secondly, and even stranger than asking a British guy to narrate your book, the author thought it would be a good idea to reveal the outcomes, the mindset of detectives & prosecutors, the motive of the murderer(s), etc., in the first couple of chapters in the book! After listening to the first 3-4 chapters, I already knew that she would be on trial, she would be found guilty, the arguments that would be made by prosecutors, the opinions of the detectives at the time of her arrest, etc., etc. This is even before I knew anything about the crime itself, the victim, the perpetrator, etc! I now own countless books on Audible, all of which are of the "true crime" genre and I've never heard an author let go of so much information right at the beginning of the story! Unfortunately, the decision to write the story this way made me very uninterested in the rest of the book. (I listened to the whole thing because these credits are expensive, but still....)

Narration is terrible

As most people have said it is American beauty and the narrator is not. I could get over that part however, he is so monotone it makes the story boring. I felt obligated to listen to it because I spent the money on it but it was tough to get through.