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Too Late to Say Goodbye: A True Story of Murder and Betrayal

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Customer Reviews
Rating:

- More Applause for Ann Rule!!
I have said this before: If you are a fan of Ann Rule, you must buy this book! As a lawyer and a big fan of true crime books, I have been reading her stories for years and I find her to be one of the sharpest observers of criminal behavior out there. Other writers exploit the blood and guts and the lurid details but Ann tells a story and makes you feel for all the players from the victims to the cops to the prosecutors and the other people who are close to the crime.

There are not too many other books that break away from the pulpy, cheap exploitations, but I would heartily endorse Ron Franscell's The Darkest Night: Two Sisters, a Brutal Murder, and the Loss of Innocence in a Small Town and James Ellroy's My Dark Places and Joseph Wambaugh's The Onion Field because they all do much deeper into the effects of crime on the living.

Rating:

- Ann Fans Pounce!
With so many positive reviews, there is no need for a lengthy review of "Too Late to Say Goodbye". There is a special feature here: TLTSG features not one but two murders. One is set in eastern Georgia, near Augusta, the other in an Atlanta exurb. The suspected perp is a young semi-successful dentist, Bart Corbin. Corbin is one of those guys readers may instantly dislike. AR is at her best here. The suspense is maintained far into the text. The authoress ably portrays both the careful investigation by the Georgia Law plus the pain felt by the two victimized families. This reviewer has railed about excessive verbiage in other true crime stories but no "sharp blue pencil" is needed here. The length is just about right. AR had a lot of material to deal with. As the header states, Ann fans should simply pounce on that "Add to Cart" button. New readers should be pleased but could always sample shorter AR works like "The I5 Killer" or "The Want Ad Killer" before proceeding. TLTSG is definitely one of the authoress' better efforts. That infamous "Ann Rule Rule" is definitely in effect here: The back cover and those centerfold photos divulge all. Skip them until the finish. The pictures do however, personalize the two tragic victims. How sad that these young women met their senseless demise as they did.

Rating:

- Adequate
Typical Ann Rule biases and opinions dot the presentation. Victims are presented as almost saintly and she chooses to ignore the fact that early investigators could have done more.

Rule even tosses out a missing person in another part of the country at the end of this book and tries to link the killer in this book to her, which, if anyone is familiar with that case, knows is incredibly off-the-wall.

But, this book seems to have been well researched and is an interesting read.

Rating:

- The Dentist From Hell.
Ann Rule's meticulous research means that, as with all her books, we get an insight into the various personalities involved in the case. She's very skilled at pointing out the small personal quirk or even decorating style that makes us feel we know the victims & their killer.
Where the book doesn't work for me is that despite this insight & compassion, she resolutely maintains a good/bad, black/white view of the world that doesn't quite jell with the facts she reveals.
The killer, Bart Corbin, is so bad tempered, nasty, anal, & just plain crazy that it's hard to believe the two murdered women had anything to do with him.
The author is so busy maintaining the "good girl" personae of the two unfortunate victims that we learn little of why they were happy to embark on relationships with him. This, for me, trivializes the tragedy of their deaths. Relying heavily on relatives of the victims for information on the killer's personality seems unwise. Who could be impartial in such circumstances?
Despite the length of the book I learned little of the character & motivations of the killer. On the other hand, the persistence of the investigators in bringing him to justice is detailed in a fascinating & enthralling part of the story.
I'd recommend this book, but with reservations as given above.

Rating:

- Can't help myself for reading this
Why do we read these true crime melodramas? For the same reason we gawk at car crashes. We can't help our voyeuristic impulses. And we are glad it's not us in the spotlight. This one looks at a Georgia murder where it was obvious the husband did it. The twist is he did once before, too, 14 years earlier, and almost got away with it. You won't learn anything here. You'll be entertained, if your idea of entertainment is reading about domestic murders. There's little doubt they got the right guy, at least in this account. The wife is a bit too beatified by the author, one suspects. And the husband is too evil to be true in this account. It's all black and white, but there must have been shades of gray. Just not here. Worth reading, though, because the author knows how to move the pages along.

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