Kiss Me, Kill Me, Ann Rule
Kiss Me, Kill Me, Ann Rule
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
Club: $13.49

Kiss Me, Kill Me
Ann Rule's Crime Files Vol. 9

Author: Ann Rule

Narrator: Laural Merlington

Unabridged: 11 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/24/2026


Synopsis

The dark side of love is no fairy tale....

And while we may like to believe that crimes of the heart only victimize those who aren't careful, this collection of must-listen accounts will convince you otherwise. America's #1 true-crime writer, Ann Rule reveals how lovers become predators, how sex and lust can push ordinary people to desperate acts, and how investigators and forensics experts work to unravel the most entangled crimes of passion. Extracting behind-the-scenes details, Rule makes these volatile relationships utterly real, and masterfully re-creates the ill-fated chains of events in such cases as the ex-Marine and martial arts master who seduced vulnerable women and then destroyed their lives...the killer whose calling card was a single bloodred rose...the faithless wife who manipulated and murdered without conscience...the blind date that set the stage for a killer's brutality...and more. In every case, the victim -- young and innocent or older and experienced -- unknowingly trusted a stranger with the sociopathic skill to hide their dark motives, until it was too late to escape a web of deadly lies, fatal promises, and homicidal possession.

About Ann Rule

Ann Rae Stackhouse was born in Lowell, MI in 1931. Her mother taught school, specializing in developmentally disabled children, and her father was a coach. Ann was in law enforcement in her young adult years, as was many in her family. She received various degrees from different colleges and universities, including studying creative writing, criminology, and psychology at University of Washington.

Ann's marriage, and eventual divorce changed her last name to Rule, which she keeps as her author name. Her extensive education and experience as a police woman gave her the perfect credentials to become regarded by many as the foremost true crime writer in America, setting the standards for the genre. For example, while she was volunteering at a suicide hotline center in Seattle in 1971, she met a work study student by the name of Ted Bundy, not realizing until a few years later that it was the same Bundy responsible for a series of murders. To her, he was kind, solicitous, and empathetic. She wrote her first book about him, considered one of the definitive biographies of Bundy.......The Stranger Beside Me (written under her own name, rather than the previously used pen name).

Rule has been a full-time crime writer since 1969, and has published 33 books and 1400 articles, mostly on criminal cases.

Today, she teaches seminars to law enforcement groups, a certified instructor in many subjects such as: Serial Murder, Sadistic Sociopaths, Women Who Kill, and High Profile Offenders. She has consulted with the FBI at their headquarters in Quantico, VA tracking a system to help identify and trap serial killers. She testimonies twice before the Senate Judiciary Sub-committee on victim's rights and the danger of serial killers.

Simon and Schuster currently have Rule under contract. Eight of her books have been made into TV movies, and more are in the works. Ann is in active support groups for victims of violent crimes and their families, in programs to help battered and abused women, and support group.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Sharon on January 10, 2023

Ann Rule never disappoints as a true-crime author. Kiss Me, Kill Me is no exception. It focuses on cases where love relationships lead to deadly results. Some of the stories that are highlighted involve stranger to stranger encounters but the large majority deal with deaths by the hands of a loved o......more

Goodreads review by Laur on December 05, 2021

True crime is what it is (a horrible true event that has already happened), but in selecting the accounts to write about, the author should take in just how much information or research they have or don’t have in any given case. After listening to this on audio, it raised some confusion with what I f......more

Goodreads review by Terry on August 13, 2020

I don't know how many of Anne Rule's books I've read. They pretty much are of two formats--either covering a single true crime case, or as in this book a selection of several true crimes. Rule wrote from the perspective of not only a journalist but also as a person with a law enforcement background.......more

Goodreads review by Katherine on January 05, 2017

*"Kiss Me, Kill Me": this is a wide ranging piece, more of an essay about cold cases than Rule's usual detailed examination of a single crime. She starts and ends with Sandra Bowman, who was brutally murdered in her own apartment just before Christmas 1968, and whose murderer wasn't identified until......more

Goodreads review by Lorna on April 15, 2016

Interesting and fairly creepy. I'm amazed by the number of men who violently murdered their wives/girlfriends/etc., got out of jail 10-15 years later, and then got married again. WHO WOULD MARRY A MURDERER????! The book mainly focused on the Pacific Northwest. I wish there had been more geographical......more