Synopses & Reviews
Near midnight on October 24, 1995, a Kansas wind fans the flames that consume a neo-Tudor mansion in the posh suburb of Prairie Village, where Dr. Debora Green lives with her three children.
Two of the children, Tim, thirteen, and Kelly, six, die, along with their pet dogs. When the fire is labeled arson and police begin to focus on Deb Green, those who know the cancer specialist are shocked. What would induce a woman, a doctor committed by her Hippocratic Oath to "do no harm", to murder her own children in such a horrible way?
The case builds as investigators learn that her estranged husband, Dr. Michael Farrar, had been hospitalized several times following near-fatal episodes of intestinal distress. Could a woman be so full of vengeful fury that she would, like Medea, destroy their children and watch as he grew deathly ill from the poisoned food she fed him?
None of Ann Rule's previous subjects -- not Diane Downs of Small Sacrifices who shot her own children, nor Brad Cunningham of Dead by Sunset who savagely bludgeoned his wife to death -- has presented such a tangled puzzle of psychopathology. Nor have they ever inspired such an enthralling study of the criminal mind.
Synopsis
GIFTED WITH A BRILLIANT MIND, BLESSED WITH A BEAUTIFUL FAMILY -- AND CURSED WITH A DESTRUCTIVE MADNESS
In this harrowing "New York Times" bestseller, Ann Rule is at her masterful best as she winnows horrific truths from the ashes of what seemed like paradise in Prairie Village, Kansas. Rule probes the case of Debora Green, a doctor and a loving mother who seemed to epitomize the dreams of the American heartland. A small-town girl with a genius IQ, she achieved an enviable life: her own medical practice, a handsome physician husband, three perfect children, and an opulent home in an exclusive Kansas City suburb. But when a raging fire destroyed that home and took two lives, the trail of clues led investigators to a stunning conclusion. Piece by piece, Ann Rule digs beneath this placid Midwestern facade to unveil a disturbing portrait of strangely troubled marriages, infidelity, desperation, suicide, and escalating acts of revenge that forever changed dozens of lives.
Synopsis
GIFTED WITH A BRILLIANT MIND, BLESSED WITH A BEAUTIFUL FAMILY -- AND CURSED WITH A DESTRUCTIVE MADNESS In this harrowing New York Times bestseller, Ann Rule is at her masterful best as she winnows horrific truths from the ashes of what seemed like paradise in Prairie Village, Kansas. Rule probes the case of Debora Green, a doctor and a loving mother who seemed to epitomize the dreams of the American heartland. A small-town girl with a genius IQ, she achieved an enviable life: her own medical practice, a handsome physician husband, three perfect children, and an opulent home in an exclusive Kansas City suburb. But when a raging fire destroyed that home and took two lives, the trail of clues led investigators to a stunning conclusion. Piece by piece, Ann Rule digs beneath this placid Midwestern facade to unveil a disturbing portrait of strangely troubled marriages, infidelity, desperation, suicide, and escalating acts of revenge that forever changed dozens of lives.