You Belong to Me and Other True Crime Cases

Rule (Everything She Ever Wanted) upholds her title as maven of the murder tale in this riveting second volume in her anthology series. Like A Rose for Her Grave, this collection consists of one book-length treatment and five shorter case histories from her true-crime files. Meticulous in her coverage, Rule demonstrates her signature, compassionate re-creation, when describing the numerous lives affected when Florida highway patrolman Tim Harris obsessively stalked his wife and then raped and murdered a female driver near I-95. Operating on many levels, it can be read as the psychological profile of a man for whom a wife was simply another possession or as a wonderfully detailed police procedural, complete with frustrating false leads and a brilliantly inspired interrogation scene. In each of the subsequent cases, Rule shifts the focus slightly, concentrating on an entangled forensics puzzle in one, on a two-year missing-person search complicated by a psychic goose chase in another. Rule's considerable reporting skills and hindsight analysis make her a gifted cautionary guide through the hazards of human folly. Yet, as she admits in the chilling ``Black Christmas,'' when a picture-perfect family can be brutally murdered due to an absurd misunderstanding, all the little red flags in the world may mean nothing. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour. (Sept.)