The Stranger Beside Me

Ann Rule is a hard-working mother of four in middle age when she starts working beside a courteous, clever young man at a crisis clinic. She comes to think of him as a younger brother and a trusted friend.

The book carries two stories at once. One follows that man as he slides from an apparently normal, likeable person into a methodical sexual predator and killer. The other is Rule's own: the slow, reluctant understanding that her friend is a violent serial murderer.

This is true crime told from inside the friendship, by the woman who lived it. Her slow recognition of the truth is painful to read, and the tone is sombre and often distressing. The account does not dwell on graphic detail.

The victims are not reduced to numbers in a count. Each one is described with respect and evident grief, through the ordinary concerns of her young life. The loss registers through the contrast between those lives and how they ended.

Readers who want a study of a killer will find one. They will also find a portrait of the people he took.