Crime

Not my typical genre, better than some true crimes I have read. I think I liked how much effort the author gave to each person background, but some of it was too much on information that didn't seem important to the current crime. In the end I was more invested i the Stackhouse family tragedies and their reactions to it. It just made it more difficult to follow the murder and how they were all connected. This is a sad series of events. ( )

Practice to Deceive by Ann Rule is a 2013 Gallery Books publication.

This is another book that has been on my TBR list for ages. I remember grabbing this one without researching it because it was a true crime story written by Ann Rule. Why question it?

Well, I’m going to be totally honest- after I saw so many anemic reviews for this one, it scared me off, and I decided to put it on a back burner for a while.

Sadly, after languishing on my Kindle for at least eight years, the reviews haven’t improved all that much. Still, this was a case I was unfamiliar with, so I decided to go ahead and give the book a chance before I scratched it off my list.

This is most certainly an odd story. Russel Douglas had made plans with his ex-wife, Brenna, on Christmas day, but never showed up. His body was found the next day in his SUV. Initially, the thought was that he might have committed suicide, but that turned out not to be the case.

It took investigators years to build a case against Brenna’s friend Peggy and her former lover, Jim Huden. The book begins with the discovery of Russel’s body, then proceeds to take us through the long years it took to make a case against the suspects.

The thing about this case, in my opinion, is that it doesn’t seem to translate into a very compelling drama on paper. It might have seemed more interesting on 'Dateline' or '48 hours', or something, but those shows typically only run for one or two hours, with ads.

A full book on the case, which was, for all intents and purposes, built around finding the murder weapon – which was an incredible stroke of luck.

It appears there just wasn’t enough here to create a full book, so we have lots of filler about Peggy’s half-siblings, and the tragic death of their mother, which didn’t really didn't have a direct bearing on this case.


The execution is not there either. I got lost or just plain bored a few times as the case felt too drawn out, with the introduction of too many people, who didn't have anything to do with the case, per se.

This book might have worked better if it had been shortened, released as a novella, or in a collection with other true crime stories.

Despite all the filler, I did think the case was interesting just because of how crazy it was that the murderers were ever brought to justice in the first place.

The investigators were tenacious and never gave up on the case, which is another plus. Naturally, there were some lingering questions, especially about Brenna, but overall, the case was wrapped up as best as could be expected.

Overall, this was not as bad as I had anticipated. It was not the most cohesive of Rule’s books and was certainly not one of the most interesting cases I’ve read about, but it wasn’t totally without merit, and I’m glad I gave it a chance, at all.

3 stars ( )

I found this book endless. I was bored from beginning to end probably because Rule tries to fit way too many things into this book. I think it's cause the case she focuses on (the murder of Russell Douglas) does not have a satisfactory ending through as a reader you can put two and two together.

I thought the book zigzagged way too much. We start off with the dead man and Rule works backwards but also alludes to some things here and there about the dead man's wife. And then we jump to a way too in depth look at the investigation team. We then run and focus on a woman who seems to be one of the people behind the murder and her family history. I don't know if Rule wanted readers to feel sorry for this woman or it was something interesting​ to add or what. Rule even adds a mini family tree at the front of the book, but I still had a hard time keeping people separate.

I think this may be one of the shorter Rule books I have read, but I still wish some things have been cut.

Rule adds lots of colored photos in this book, and they were okay, but I wish she had left some of them out since it just felt like padding after a while. ( )

A true crime story of the murder of Russel Douglas in Puget Sound, Washington, in 2003. Ann Rule is the "queen" of the true crime genre and as usual, this was an excellent book with a lot of interesting information, but not so much technical info as to turn one off. If you are a true crime fan (as I am) or are familiar with the area, this is a good read. ( )

Just so annoying and boring I decided to give up after reading 1/3rd. Wth happened to Ann Rule? It seems someone else is writing for her!

There has been such a change to the books that were published over the last 8 years or so. Her last good book was Too Late to say Goodbye which was published in 2007 so quite a long time.

She did have the tendency to be to one sided making the victims out to be angels like in Heart Full of Lies which was written in 2003 but it is now not just that but this book was boring and it never grabbed me. ( )

Amazing, the way she managed to pull together all the disparate characters in the case and make it make sense so you understood how they related to one another and to the murder committed was masterful. Extremely captivating and already passed this book to a friend to read. ( )

Although I have read Ann Rule before and found her riveting, this book felt like a first draft of notes. Very incomplete and sketchy and not particularly well written. I read it mainly because my sister and brother-in-law live on Whidbey Island and he knew the victim. Not a thorough coverage of the case , I had as many questions afterwards as I did from what I knew before I read it. ( )

I am really torn on rating this book. This book was a quick and interesting read - Ann Rule excels at suspenseful yet concise narrative. So, in that regard, I'd give this book four stars. It's not as good as some of Rule's other books (specifically "Stranger Beside Me" or "Everything She Ever Wanted"), but it's still engrossing in terms of pace and intrigue.

My bigger issue with this book is the author's biased commentary. Peggy Sue (one of the central characters in the book) was already unlikeable without additional commentary by Rule. (SPOILER ALERT) Rule writes, "It was almost as if she had her own 'bucket list,' and setting up and getting away with murder was high on that list." There were other comments like that in the book - purely speculative and frankly not really all that believable. This particular character seemed primarily motivated by money, so the "bucket list" comment was just weird. Also, Rule honed in on Peggy Sue as the mastermind behind the crime. She was definitely involved, but I thought Rule focused her vitriol on Peggy Sue and not on Jim Huden, the idiot who actually pulled the trigger. Rule seems to blame Peggy Sue for being conniving and persuasive without putting enough responsibility on the man who let another person convince him to commit murder. In fact, Rule even suggests that Huden would never have killed had it not been for Peggy Sue's influence. That may or may not be true, but Huden had previously admitted that he wanted the chance to get even with his late stepfather by physically confronting someone who was similarly abusive. So it is unclear whether Peggy Sue is as cunning as she is made out to be in this book or if she was already dealing with a loose cannon who wasn't hard to persuade. I am certainly not defending Peggy Sue, but I think the author's hatred for the criminals in this case is unevenly distributed, and that was consistent throughout the book. That, plus the fact that the story isn't among the best Ann Rule has written about, is why I ultimately settled on giving this book three stars. ( )

boring, redundant ( )

One of my first times reading true crime. Some of the subject matter is a little difficult, yet it is interesting so I may finish it anyway.

Although the murder in question occurred on the day after Christmas, Practice to Deceive is not a holiday read. It's about a murder, after all. The murder of Russel Douglas took ten long years to solve and proves to be more convoluted than anything you'll read in crime fiction. There is a vast array of characters (and they are characters) and reams of detail that all added up to two convictions, but no real answers. Yes, two people were convicted of his murder, but the why remains elusive and this leaves the reader hanging, wanting a more substantive conclusion yet left with bits and pieces of speculation.

I like some of Ann Rule's books. When she's on she writes well and has the ability to move you with her insider knowledge of the victims, but also of how the real investigation happened over extended time periods. She is able to provide a level of insight that many writers in this genre do not and this is definitely not prime time television. People get caught, when they get caught, because they say stupid things or mix up their stories or an eyewitness comes forward or someone puts two disparate pieces of information together and asks the right questions. This isn't prime-time television where where everything's wrapped up in a nice neat package with bow several hours after the murder. This is real life and it's messy and difficult and doesn't always lend itself to a tidy conclusion.

The primary issue with this book is not just the ambiguous conclusion, the not knowing why this happened. Rather it's the ambiguity of the entire book with the author eliding over lives, skimming the surface. Much of the focus in on the villains, but Ms. Rule also skims over the lives of other players. My biggest complaint is that the victim remains a cipher with lots of questions asked, but never answered. Russel Douglas is a guy who got shot in the head in his car at the end of the book and this isn't much different from the beginning. Our knowledge and understanding of him is shallow, he is made tangential to the story and I found this disappointing. Not the best of her books, Practice to Deceive left me wanting something a lot more focused. Not her best. ( )

The one big thing that stands out for me in this book is the narrative voice Mrs. Rule uses. Unlike many of the true crime books I have read this book feels more like mystery fiction then an accounting of events. In fact, if I was not already familiar with Rule and her style I might have thought this was indeed fiction, and well written fiction at that. She is expert at painting a scene and giving you a real feel for everything that happened.

Similarly all of the people surrounding Douglass’s murder are well written with enough personality on the page that they read like well-crafted characters. You really have to applaud Detective Plumberg’s doggedness at following this case and chasing down the hard to find leads. Equally you can’t help but hate many of the people in Douglass’s life. At every point I was hoping to see his wife get some kind of comeuppance for her so cold and greedy personality. You could almost feel how contemptible she was through the book. This is the real strength of the book. Rule really makes you connect, either positively or negatively, with everyone you meet.

There is one big flaw however. Several of the people you encounter have interesting backstories, and Rule cannot help but digress to them. That in of itself would not be such a bad thing except that some of these digressions are incredibly long and only tangentially affect your understanding of the main events in the book. At one point she spends 30+ pages giving a very detailed biography of one of the major players in the book which is completely skipable. Not that those events are uninteresting by themselves but it completely sidetracks the main story and puts the breaks on an otherwise well passed story. The important pieces from these peoples backgrounds could be laid out simply in a page or two and then let the reader return to the story they are invested in. What makes this worse is she does just that with several other character backstories, meaning she is perfectly capable of reigning in these side journeys. Someone reading this book for the first time can skip these sections and loose little understanding or enjoyment. ( )