****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 page-turning collection of must-read 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.

I practise my shock-horror face in the mirror for the seventh time. 'My husband, he's . . . dead.' Bethan Phillips has only one thing on her mind: killing her rich and elderly husband for his fortune. But after several thwarted attempts, it is a horrific accident while holidaying together in Snowdonia that takes Humphrey down. Now she must pretend he's alive, continuing social gatherings alone under the guise he is undertaking business abroad. Because someone witnessed her leaving Humphrey to die, and should the police investigate his death they'll discover the series of 'accidents' he's survived in the previous few days... and it won't take them long to connect the dots. There are many reasons Bethan would rather the police didn't look too closely at her. Or the life she lived before becoming Bethan Philips. Unfortunately for her, DI Emma Locke is on the case. A gripping new psychological thriller, Kiss Me, Kill Me is smart, sly and...

A long-ago act of kindness to a desperate woman changed Dr. Carrie Overton's life forever. Before disappearing, the grateful stranger had given Carrie her newborn son. When the woman is murdered, the secret becomes Carrie's alone. She has kept both it and her son, Sam, safe for sixteen years. But now a friend of Sam's has gone missing. The police believe he's a runaway—until he's found dead. Then another teen disappears, and talk turns to that long-ago murder. Newcomer Gabriel Cain is asking too many questions, befriending Sam, getting too close. Carrie distrusts him even as she finds herself falling for him. But Gabriel has secrets, too…. Is it time for the lying to end?Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.Present Day"Go, Sam! Woohoo!" Carrie pumped her fist in the air when her lanky teenage son nailed the soccer ball with the inside of his size-ten foot, sending it like a bullet past the goalie and into the net. He glanced her way, gave her a half smile that didn't reach his eyes, then tapped the yellow band on his arm to remind everyone watching who that goal was for.As she sat down again, Carrie was embarrassed by her outburst. It was inappropriate, given the circumstances.The game continued, and she looked around at the other spectators. Parents and other locals, mostly, lining the bleachers at the edge of an extensive and well-groomed field behind Shadow Falls Central High. School hadn't yet started—even though preseason games and practices had begun for soccer, track and cheerleading.September in Shadow Falls had a definite scent to it, and a distinct feeling to it, as well. You'd know autumn was coming even if you couldn't see or hear a thing. The leaves were beginning to turn, though they were nowhere near their peak just yet. The sun was just as bright as it had been all summer long, but not as hot anymore, and the breeze had a brisk snap that was missing in the summer months. Fall was rolling in. You could feel it, taste it in the air.But there was something besides autumn hanging in the air around Shadow Falls. There was a pall that was hard to miss. A lingering darkness that hadn't let up for five days. It only grew, in fact. Every day that Kyle Becker didn't come home, Shadow Falls got a little grimmer, a little grayer.Even the tourists must know the reason for the town's unusual melancholy mood by now. It was hard to miss, with the Teen Runaway posters stapled to every telephone pole, fence post and unsuspecting maple tree, and the thrice-daily gathering and dispatching of volunteer search parties in front of the old firehouse, just in case something had happened to him, a possibility no one wanted to contemplate too intently.Every player on both soccer teams, the Blackberry Chiefs as well as the Shadow Falls Vikings, wore a yellow armband to show unity in hoping the missing sixteen-year-old would come home soon. Five days. Carrie didn't know what the kid was thinking."Nice boot," someone said nearby.Carrie looked up to see local cop Bryan Kendall, in uniform, sitting four feet to her right. "It was, wasn't it?" she said. "How are you, Bryan?"He shrugged. "Been better.""I imagine you're over your head in wedding plans about now, aren't you? What have you got, six weeks to go?""Just under. But it's not the wedding plans weighing me down. Though I gotta tell you, I'd just as soon elope and get straight to the honeymoon.""I'll bet.""It's this Kyle Becker thing," he said.She nodded, sighing. "The timing couldn't be much worse, could it?""Not much. Tough checking out every stranger in town at the kickoff of leaf-peeper season."She nodded in sympathy as she scanned the bleachers, spotting a few unfamiliar faces among the locals, even here. Not many. The tourists preferred winery tours and foliage photo-ops to high school sporting events. But a few of them had discovered the soccer match and settled in to watch. One in particular caught her eye. He sat a few rows down and off to the left, and he was immersed in a supermarket tabloid with Shadow Falls' latest scandal splashed on its front page.Dead Woman Misidentified for More Than Sixteen Years.Anonymous Source Puts Up Half-Million-Dollar Reward for Her Missing Baby.Carrie closed her eyes, shook her head, wishing the story of her son's birth mother would just go away already. But it was everywhere. And the idiot offering the reward wasn't helping.All those years ago, the dead woman had been identified as one Sarah Quinlan. It was only in the past few weeks that her true identity, Olivia Dupree, had been revealed. That had renewed interest in the case, and the additional information that the dead woman had given birth only weeks prior to her murder had given the story legs.No one in Shadow Falls had known Olivia was pregnant or heard anything about a baby, but now everyone in the U.S. of A. suddenly seemed to be interested in speculating on what had become of it. Especially with the huge reward thrown into the mix.Carrie hadn't known the dead woman's name when her body had been trundled into her hospital's morgue for autopsy. But she'd recognized her face. It had been only six weeks since she'd last seen it, after all. She'd been searching Shadow Falls for the young woman, hoping to get her to sign the adoption papers that would officially make Sam Carrie's own. On that horrible day, she'd realized it would never happen.She alone knew what had become of the murder victim's missing baby. He'd just scored a goal on the soccer field, and he didn't even know he was adopted."You know that guy?" Bryan asked.Carrie blinked and realized that her eyes were still glued to the tourist with the tabloid. He had long, honey and caramel hair, pulled back and held with a black rubber band. He had whiskers, too. Not a beard, exactly. Just a neatly trimmed layer of bristles that was probably supposed to be sexy.Okay, it was sexy. Just not to her.He wore jeans, and a T-shirt with several guitars on the front of it and some words underneath, but she was too far away to read them clearly."Carrie?" Bryan nudged."No, no, I don't know him. I was just thinking he looks like a hippie.""Nah, they usually travel in groups." He was being funny.She wasn't laughing. "So maybe he's a lone hippie. Can't say I approve of his choice of reading material.""He probably doesn't care." Bryan nodded in a direction slightly farther left. "That one's reading the same thing, but since he's wearing a buttoned-up suit, you probably don't find it as offensive."She looked beyond the long-haired man to where Bryan had indicated. Another man sat there, light brown hair in a neat cut that seemed a little too short and too severe for his face. It was a nice face, though. He had a deep tan that stood in sharp contrast to his pale brows and even paler blue eyes, giving him a striking appearance. And his suit was impeccable, not to mention expensive."It's just as offensive. Though I'm more surprised to see an intelligent-looking guy like that reading it.""I think he looks like an Oompa-Loompa."She elbowed Bryan in the rib cage but had to laugh, and it broke a little of the tension. "You're just not used to seeing sun-worshippers at the peak of their color.""The man is orange.""He's not orange. He's deeply tanned. And he looks harmless. The hippie, on the other hand…""Doesn't look the least bit suspicious to me," Bryan said."Never trust a guy in a ponytail," she told him. "If you're still checking out tourists, I'd suggest you move that guy to the top of the list."Bryan rolled his eyes. "I don't seriously think we're looking at a stranger abduction here, Carrie. Do you?""Of course not. Kyle's sixteen. Same as Sam. God, it's hard to believe they're only two years from legal, isn't it?" She sighed. "Anyway, it was a bonehead move on Kyle's part to leave without a word, though… Sammy insists Kyle would never run off without telling him.""You think he's right about that?" Bryan asked.She looked across the soccer field at her son. "You know how kids are at this age—it's all about the drama. And my son's second favorite activity is drama club.""I don't blame him. He kicked ass in 'The Wizard of Oz.'"She smiled, remembering. "He's a natural. I think he could be a professional actor if he wanted to.""I agree. I also think he watches too much CSI.""I hope that's it," Carrie said. "I just don't want to believe child abduction is something that can happen here in Shadow Falls." She watched Bryan's face as she spoke, hoping for some confirmation of her theories.He looked away as he said, "I just wish we'd get a lead on Kyle so we would know one way or the other."Her heart skipped a little. "Bryan, are you saying… are you saying there's a chance Sam's right? That Kyle didn't run away?"He shrugged. "There's no evidence that anything happened to him. Every indication is that he just took it into his head to run off. I just wish he'd call his family and fess up already. It's cruel, putting them through this. They're good people.""I never thought of Kyle as a cruel kid," she said.Bryan averted his eyes. "Yeah, I know. It does seem out of character, and that's what's bothering me about all this."It sounded to Carrie as if Bryan might be rethinking the current popular theory about Kyle's disappearance, and that realization sent a chill up her spine. But before she could question him further, she saw his eyes widen and followed his gaze to the field just in time to witness a teeth-jarring impact between a player and the ground. There was no one near the kid, so obviously no one had hit him. He was clutching his chest, and his mouth was open wide."Gotta go, Bry!" Carrie grabbed her medical bag, always nearby at sporting events, and bounded between spectators to get to the field.The crowd was on its feet but parted to let her through. She wasn't in a panic—this happened on a fairly regular basis, and it was usually nothing. As she cleared the knot of players and parents being held at bay by the coaches and refs, she saw the boy.The kid on his back was Marty Sheffield, and he had a full-blown asthma attack going on. She could tell that his pulse was skyrocketing; his eyes were rolling back already, and his lips were blue."Okay, Marty, easy now. Easy." She yanked an inhaler from her bag. She also kept one in her glove compartment and two at her house. The number of asthmatic tee...

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 page-turning collection of must-read 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...

SUMMARY: When 16-year-old Scarlett Wakefield transfers from St. Tabby’s to Wakefield Hall Collegiate, she is relieved that no one knows her dark, haunting secret. A few months ago, Scarlett was invited to an elite party with a guest list full of the hottest names in British society, including Dan McAndrew. Before the party, Scarlett had only imagined what it would be like to have her first kiss with Dan, but on the penthouse terrace, Dan leaned in close and she no longer had to wonder. Their kiss was beautiful and perfect and magical, and then . . . Dan McAndrew took his last breath as she held him in her arms. No one knows how or why Dan died, and everyone at St. Tabby’s believes Scarlett had something to do with it. But now that she’s safely hidden away at Wakefield Hall, Scarlett would rather forget that it ever happened. Only she can’t. Especially when she receives an anonymous note that will set her on the path to clearing her name and finding out what really happened to the first and last boy she kissed.From the Hardcover edition.