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

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.

Great book

this book is so good. I have now bought it twice. I didn't remember already listening to it, and got it again but it was worth it.

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.

Love these true life cases

Always detailed, great narrator. The mix of cases are well done. It’s great when there is a movie or documentary about one of the cases presented.

Solid collection of true crime

A bit too heavy on the prior life details, but that's just a personal opinion.

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.

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.

Lots of interesting stories

You get a nice mix of true crime from past years, so I had know about others I had not. Some really touched my heart, what they all have in commend is the true evil of the people who did them. The preachers widow I am not sure I am buying all that the widow saids, some yes but I think she did it so she wouldn't have to face him with what she has done. There are a lot of interesting stories here, it really was a book I didn't want to put down.

The narrator did a great job giving true emotions, you could hear it in her voice. Her character voices are very nice you always knew who was talking and what their feelings were. There are no background noise, no repeating of words, and no noise changes. It really was an emotional listen that I couldn't put down.

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.

Another great book and performance.

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

Always interesting

Ann Rule’s books are always very good and worth reading or listening to. Highly recommend.