Was she a sweet southern charmer? Or a cold-blooded killer?

For their wedding portrait, petite Pat Taylor and handsome Tom Allanson posed as Rhett and Scarlett. Both came from fine Southern families and dreamed of the Tara-like plantation where they would grow roses, raise horses, and move in the genteel circles of Atlanta society.

Less than two months later, their dream exploded in terror and murder: their beautiful home mysteriously burned to the ground, and Tom was convicted of the brutal slaying of his mother and father.

Pat's only brother had died in a puzzling suicide, her grandparents-in-law were poisoned with arsenic, and no one—from her wealthy employers to her own children—was safe when Pat Allanson didn't get her way.

It took Georgia lawmen more than two decades to stop her for good—if indeed they have.

In this fascinating account, Ann Rule delivers a tour de force: a whirlwind of misguided love, denial, guilt, and passions out of control; a series of brilliantly manipulated crimes; the bizarre and horrifying tale of two families brought to ruin; and, at the center of it all, the heartless, supremely selfish sociopath whose evil hid behind soft words and gentle manners, but who destroyed—without mercy—those who loved her.

A brilliant blend of science and crime, A TASTE FOR POISON reveals how eleven notorious poisons affect the body through the murders in which they were used.

As any reader of murder mysteries can tell you, poison is one of the most enduring—and popular—weapons of choice for a scheming murderer. It can be slipped into a drink, smeared onto the tip of an arrow or the handle of a door, even filtered through the air we breathe.

But how exactly do these poisons work to break our bodies down, and what can we learn from the damage they inflict?

In a fascinating blend of popular science, medical history, and true crime, Dr. Neil Bradbury explores this most morbidly captivating method of murder from a cellular level.

Alongside real-life accounts of murderers and their crimes—some notorious, some forgotten, some still unsolved—are the equally compelling stories of the poisons involved: eleven molecules of death that work their way through the human body and, paradoxically, illuminate the way in which our bodies function.

Drawn from historical records and current news headlines, A Taste for Poison weaves together the tales of spurned lovers, shady scientists, medical professionals and political assassins to show how the precise systems of the body can be impaired to lethal effect through the use of poison.

From the deadly origins of the gin & tonic cocktail to the arsenic-laced wallpaper in Napoleon’s bedroom, A Taste for Poison leads readers on a riveting tour of the intricate, complex systems that keep us alive—or don’t.

Small Sacrifices is Ann Rule's shocking and powerful account of the destructive forces that drove Diane Downs, a beautiful young mother, to shoot her three young children in cold blood.

The mesmerizing story unfolds with the shooting of three children, and follows a detailed uncovering of facts that seems to lead to the mother as the prime suspect. Diane Downs, a beautiful, brilliant sociopath, commits the ultimate evil to gain the love of a married man.

Ann Rule provides an insight into the horrifying personality of Downs, who never confesses to her crimes. Her conduct during the trial is as disturbing as the act itself. She taps her foot and smiles while listening to "Hungry Like the Wolf," the song that played in her car during the crime. She laughs when she should cry, and cries only when it benefits her. One daughter is dead, another has lost the use of her arm and speech, and the little boy is paralyzed. None of this horror seems to penetrate Diane, who appears to have no feelings for her children's suffering.

This book is a must-read for all true crime buffs, as Ann Rule meticulously presents every piece of evidence, keeping the reader on the edge of their seat.

America’s #1 true-crime writer fulfills a murder victim’s desperate plea with this shattering New York Times bestseller.

“If anything ever happens to me…find Ann Rule and ask her to write my story.”

In perhaps the first true-crime book written at the victim's request, Ann Rule untangles a web of lies and brutality that culminated in the murder of Sheila Blackthorne Bellush—a woman Rule never met, but whose shocking story she now chronicles with compassion, exacting detail, and unvarnished candor.

Although happily ensconced in a loving second marriage, and a new family of quadruplets, Sheila never truly escaped the vicious enslavement of her ex-husband, multi-millionaire Allen Blackthorne, a handsome charmer— and a violent, controlling sociopath who subjected Sheila to unthinkable abuse in their marriage, and terrorized her for a decade after their divorce.

When Sheila was slain in her home, in the presence of her four toddlers, authorities raced to link the crime to Blackthorne, the man who vowed to monitor Sheila's every move in his obsessive quest for power and revenge.

From the bestselling author Ann Rule comes the true story of Bradly Morris Cunningham, a handsome and successful entrepreneur who married five different women and destroyed each of them.

Ann Rule, renowned for her riveting true crime stories, brings us the horrific account of a charismatic man adored by beautiful and brilliant women who gave him everything he desired... sex, money, and their very lives.

When attorney Cheryl Keeton's brutally bludgeoned body was found in her van on an Oregon freeway, her husband, Brad Cunningham, was the likely suspect. However, there was no solid evidence linking him to the crime. He married again, for the fifth time, and his stunning new wife, a physician named Sara, adopted his three sons. They all settled into family life on a luxurious estate, but gradually, their marriage became a nightmare.

In this gripping account of Cheryl's murder, Ann Rule takes us from Brad's troubled boyhood to one of the most bizarre trials in legal history, uncovering multiple marriages, financial manipulations, infidelities, and monstrous acts of harassment and revenge along the way. Dead By Sunset is Ann Rule at her riveting best.

Spring, 1543. King Henry VIII is wooing Lady Catherine Parr, whom he desires as his sixth wife. Yet, this time, the object of his affections is resisting. Archbishop Cranmer and the embattled Protestant faction at court are watching keenly, for Lady Catherine is known to have reformist sympathies.

Meanwhile, a teenage boy, a religious maniac, has been placed in the Bedlam hospital for the insane. When an old friend of Matthew Shardlake is murdered, his investigation leads to connections to both the boy and the prophecies of the Book of Revelation. Shardlake follows a trail of horrific murders that are igniting frenzied talk of witchcraft and demonic possession. For what else would the Tudor mind make of a serial killer?