• Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

  • And Other True Cases (Ann Rule's Crime Files, Book 12)
  • By: Ann Rule
  • Narrated by: Laural Merlington
  • Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (25 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 bestselling 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, all rights reserved. Recorded by arrangement with Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

What listeners say about Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

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Overall Good

Overall a good book describing crimes against women and men alike. Rule is very much a a great true crime story teller.

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amazing

love it. it was Great..might listen again. shared withy sister. love true crime. awesome.

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DONT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY!!

I've read just about every true crime book by Ann Rule over the past decades. Always well-researched and interesting, Rule's books were worth reading over and over again. However her more recent compilations have fallen way below her high standards. Often rambling and repetitive, Rule's books are better abridged when purchased as audiobooks. While she goes into deep detail about info that millennium readers have learned from television crime shows (like DNA, lividiity, blood cast-off patterns, etc.), she leaves us in the dark on more obscure items or terms.

I noticed that this book had just 1 star from only one reader and no written reviews. I usually choose my books based on the ratings and reviews. Thinking the low recommendation was only an aberration, I bought the book anyway. WRONG MOVE!!! I can't even describe what a mess this book is. Just a bunch of comparatively minor unknown crimes, seemingly plucked from newspapers' page 4 Local section, these offerings are neither interesting or compelling. I stopped listening after the first 2 stories. You know you've been hoodwinked when a writer like Ann Rule publishes a simple unsolved possibly arson death and offers human spontaneous combustion as manner of death - and then it is only a MAYBE!!

I know Rule is in her late 70s and may not be as sharp as when she did the "Capote-'In Cold Blood'" immersion with serial killer Ted Bundy almost 30 years ago, but her editor, publisher and Audible.com should have realized that this book is no more than an unorganized throw-away - the kind of book one keeps on the toilet tank to read when there is absolutely nothing else to study except the active ingredients in Pine-Sol!!! 😡👎

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6 people found this helpful