• Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

  • And Other True Cases (Ann Rule's Crime Files, Book 12)
  • By: Ann Rule
  • Narrated by: Laural Merlington
  • Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (248 ratings)

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Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder  By  cover art

Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

By: Ann Rule
Narrated by: Laural Merlington
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Publisher's summary

Real-life murder. Real-life mystery. In some murder cases, the truth behind the most tragic of crimes crystallizes with relative ease. Not so with these fascinating accounts drawn from the personal files of Ann Rule, America's #1 best-selling true-crime writer. What happens when the case itself becomes an intractable puzzle, when clues are shrouded in smoke and mirrors, and when criminals skillfully evade law enforcement in a maddening cat-and-mouse chase? Even the most devoted true-crime listener won't predict the outcome of these truly baffling cases until the conclusions revealed in Ann Rule's marvelously insightful narrative. An ideal family is targeted for death by the least likely enemy, who plotted their demise from behind bars... A modest preacher's wife confesses to shooting her husband after an argument - but there's more to her shattering story than meets the eye. These and other true cases are analyzed with stunning clarity in a collection you won't be able to stop listening to.

©2008 Ann Rule (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

What listeners say about Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Pretty Good

This Is typical Ann Rule, well written & interesting. I do, however, find these books covering multiple cases a bit tedious at times. So many stories of evil & murder in one book are a little overwhelming.

I really like Laural Merlington's narration with the exception that she consistently mispronounces the word "short-lived," pronouncing it with a long "i" sound.

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Recommend

All ver riveting, interesting cases. Didn't think I would enjoy this book as much as I had the books that focused strictly upon one event however, I found this to be just as compelling. Although I cannot say that I "enjoy" listening to the events recalled within these pages, the information, people and events need to see the light of day. Listen, pray and take heart, because you just never know anyone as well as you assume, and you never truly know what hell the man or woman next door might be living through.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Boring

Ann Rule writes some good books but this isn't one of them. The main case was boring. All but two of the short cases were boring. I just wasn't interested in the stories at all.

The narrator does a great job.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Biography, not crime. Repetitive and booooring.

This book should be shelved with biographies, not with crime stories. I got bored and gave up on this book without even getting to any murder or any other serious crime.

It's a shame, because the reader, Laural Merlington, is actually quite good. She does as well with this material as anyone can expect.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Another great book and performance.

Ann Rule never dissapoints and Laurel Merlington always gives a great, consistent performance. Great Book.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars
  • yo
  • 01-26-23

I wanted to love it but didn’t😌

I’ve read (or listened to) every Ann Rule book and this one falls short. None of the characters were very relatable or particularly interesting. The motive for murder was not compelling and in the end, I found myself barely caring about the verdict. Now that’s a sign of a bad narrative. It’s like watching a long football game, not really caring who wins because the teams are boring, the game is full of fumbles and it tends in a tie. And the announcer is just ho-hum.
This is not easy for me to say because I LOVE Ann Rule, she’s been my favorite true crime author for 40 years. But this one isn’t worth the read unless you’re in a long road trip.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Why

This was a typical Ann Rule book. Nothing remarkable, but a good listen to pass time. However, I got put off big time with the last case. Ann Rule begins the case by saying this is a book about the many aspects of domestic violence, but one time a man called her out for only writing about wives abused by their husbands, and never husbands abused by their wives. This would have been the perfect opportunity for Rule to choose a case that shows how women can abuse men, even if the statistics are much lower. She even points out that men who experience abuse often don't report it. Yet the case she chose was.....a wife murdering her husband because SHE was abused by him. She muses that both could have potentially been victims of abuse. But she cherry picked a case where, if true, the wife murdered her abusive husband because she was a battered woman and to save her own kids. I don't know how exactly this case was supposed to be an example of husbands abused by their wives. And I can guess that the man who called her out originally was not too pleased by the impression that men are only victims...if they're murdered by the wives they abuse. After listening to a ton of Rule's books, I don't expect anything groundbreaking. But it was disappointing to hear her receive valid criticism, acknowledge that criticism, and then proceed to NOT showcase the another side of domestic abuse. Women do abuse their spouses, and she should have chosen a clear case to examine for this.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Same old Ann Rule lately!

typical domestic violence oriented book. still good though just not 5 stars like some of her work!

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Couldn’t get past the narration.

I don’t like to call the reading of books “performance”. It is not a play. When this reader first began her narration, I thought she was pretty good. However, after a few times of her mispronouncing mature, it really started getting annoying. She would say it as if it ended in TORE like I tore my shirt, but in fact, the word ends with ure like, I sure am hungry. So she constantly said ma tore for mature throughout the end of the book. I was so annoyed that I was ready to throw the book out the window because for some reason this book used that word a lot. Also I did not care for her changing her voice. Every time she was reading some thing in quotation marks. She had one voice she used for every male and one voice for every female. Totally not necessary. Please just read the book.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Murder has its reasons

The stories were good but not great. The last one—-The Preachers Wife was the best!! I do like one case better.

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