Lust Killer

Narrator cannot read properly and her speech pattern is robotic and off putting.

I was extremely worried about this one, as I’m familiar with the case and the book was published originally in ‘83. I’d prepared myself for a litany of outdated transphobic rhetoric vilifying the LGBT/Trans/Kink communities. I should know better: Ann Rule has never let me down. While there’s some phraseology that’s a bit charged at times and a few conclusions that hinge a bit on misconceptions about cross-dressing, the final chapters detailing what characteristics distinguish a lust killer from your typical serial murderer, and the attention drawn to repeating traumatic patterns from childhood in lieu of writing off everything as simple paraphilia really made this book for me. I also really liked that the narrator was feminine. So many of Ann Rules masterpieces are narrated by men, especially the ones she published under a pseudonym so as not to not be written off in the highly misogynistic true crime space of the 80s and 90s. It’s really nice to finally allow a voice more like Ann’s own to retell these stories she spent so much time researching and knitting together for us.